Instructional variation and adult age differences in activity memory.

Recall of a series of 12 activities was compared for young and elderly subjects performing under four instructional conditions: incidental memory, standard intentional memory, intentional-emphasis, and interpolated recall (intermediate recall tests after every three activities had been performed). Relative to the incidental memory condition, superior recall was found for subjects in the intentional-emphasis and intentional-interpolated recall conditions. An age-related deficit in recall was found, but the Age X Instructional Condition interaction was not significant. Instructional variation was also found to affect temporal memory scores for the order in which the activities has been performed. An age-related deficit in temporal memory proficiency was found for all conditions except that of interpolated recall. On the other hand, instructional variation had a negligible effect on performance scores for the 12 specific activities.