Aging and deficits in associative memory: what is the role of strategy production?

A new method was developed to investigate the degree to which age differences in strategy production mediate age differences in paired-associate recall. Participants were instructed to use imagery or any strategy and were to report the strategy produced for each item. Age similarities in reported strategy production were found for related (Experiment 1) and unrelated (Experiment 2) word pairs: Both age groups (a) reported using effective mediators (imagery and sentence generation) more often than using no mediators and (b) complied with instructions to use imagery. Although individual differences in strategy production were related to differences in recall performance, differential strategy production accounted for little of the age differences evident in associative memory.