Selective influences of age and speed on associative memory.

Data from three studies involving a continuous paired associates task performed by adults of different ages were analyzed in an attempt to identify how processing speed might mediate age-related differences in associative memory. Age differences were found in measures postulated to represent encoding and consolidation processes, but not in a measure presumed to reflect rate of forgetting. It is suggested that increased age is associated with a reduction in the speed of executing processes concerned with establishing a stable internal representation, but not with an alteration in the rate at which encoded information is lost as a function of time or subsequent processing.