Processing Speed and Adult Age Differences in Activity Memory

Abstract

Immediate and delayed recall of performed cognitive activities was examined in 136 adults aged 20 to 85 . Hierarchical regression analyses were used to assess the association between perceptual speed and age differences in activity memory . The age - related variance in delayed activity recall was reduced by 52% by the statistical control of perceptual speed , and the age - related variance in immediate activity recall was reduced by 91%. Thus , adult age differences in delayed and immediate activity memory were found to be associated with limitations in perceptual speed . The cognitive effort that is required to perform cognitive activities may tax the processing resources of older adults , prohibiting successful encoding of the activities .