Effects of Age and Study Repetition on Plurality Discrimination

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have shown that false recognition decreases with study repetition for young but not for older adults, suggesting a deficit in recollection but not familiarity in old age. It is unclear, however, precisely how false recognition changes over a series of presentation frequencies for young and older adults. The present study examined this issue using a plurality discrimination task in which young, young–old, and old–old adults studied singular and plural nouns 1, 2, 4, and 8 times. False alarms to plurality-reversed lures increased with repetition for all age groups, and then declined at higher repetitions for young and young–old but not for old–old adults. Recollection deficit thus occurred at a more advanced age than researchers had previously envisioned. Further, reducing recollection demand eliminated age-related differences in plurality discrimination.

Keywords:

• Memory
• Aging
• Plurality discrimination
• Item recognition
• Repetition

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant AG02452 awarded to L.L. Light and an American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award (2005) awarded to Christie Chung. The results of this study were reported at the meeting of the American Psychological Association in 2005. We would like to thank Suzanne Corkin for comments on this article, and J.C. Van Ocker and Darlene Olfman for help in testing participants.

Notes

¹These confidence ratings allowed us to calculate signal detection measures, such as d_a , to further understand our data. The results for d_a were similar to those reported here, and for the sake of brevity, are not described. Interested parties may contact the authors for d_a results.