Implicit and explicit memory in young and older adults.

In three experiments, young and older adults were compared on both implicit and explicit memory tasks. The size of repetition priming effects in word completion and in perceptual identification tasks did not differ reliably across ages. However, age-related decrements in performance were obtained in free recall, cued recall, and recognition. These results, similar to those observed in amnesics, suggest that older adults are impaired on tasks which require conscious recollection but that memory which depends on automatic activation processes in relatively unaffected by age.