Age and word frequency effects in continuous recognition memory.

Fifty-seven males representing groups with median ages of 20, 52, and 63 years were presented with a long sequence of words. Using a four point scale, they judged whether each word was presented for the first ("new") or second ("old") time in the sequence. High and low frequency words and separations of 0 to 64 words between the two presentations of a given word were employed. Analyses of errors confidence judgments and decision times revealed minimal or no age difference when the number of words intervening between successive presentations did not exceed the span of immediate memory. Older subjects' performance declined more rapidly than younger subjects from 3 to 12 second retention intervals, but declined at about the same rate from 12 to 192 second retention intervals. Low frequency words were better remembered by all age groups and there was no interaction between the effects of age and word frequency in any dependent measure.