L. Nyberg et al., EFFECTS OF DIVISION OF ATTENTION DURING ENCODING AND RETRIEVAL ON AGE-DIFFERENCES IN EPISODIC MEMORY, Experimental aging research, 23(2), 1997, pp. 137-143
This study examined the effects of dual task requirements on age diffe
rences in free recall performance. One thousand adults ranging in age
between 35 and 80 years performed a word recall task alone and concurr
ently with a card-sorting task (at encoding, retrieval, or both). Age
differences in memory performance were substantial under single task c
onditions, but after correcting memory performance under dual task con
ditions for differences in single task performance, age did nor predic
t performance. These results do not support the hypothesis that reduce
d attentional capacity in old age is underlying age differences in epi
sodic memory.