Adult age similarities in free recall output order and strategies.

Adult age differences on a variety of free recall measures were examined. Although primary memory capacity was found to be the same in young and old adults, there was a smaller recency effect in the older group. Recall of primacy items was also less for that group. However, the pattern of serial position effects was the same for the two age groups. Similarly, there was no age difference in the development of the strategy of recalling recency items early in the output sequence. Young adults showed the typical negative recency effect in final free recall, and old adults the absence of a positive recency effect. The results indicate that the lower level of recall of old, relative to young, adults cannot be attributed to a qualitative difference in the way the two age groups approach a free recall task.