Recall and recognition in elderly and young subjects

59 elderly Ss and 58 young persons were shown 20 drawings of common objects at the rate of 1 per 2 sec. The process was repeated until a criterion of 80% recall was achieved. Ss then believed their task complete, but were retested after 4 weeks for both recall and recognition. The elderly group proved significantly inferior to the control group in both recall and recognition, and found recall more difficult than the young Ss. No correlation was found between delayed recall or delayed recognition on the one hand and the time actually spent in original learning or the number of exposures of the stimulus material on the other. Delayed memory (both in recall and recognition) correlated significantly with the original level of immediate recall achieved in satisfying the criterion. 1969 Australian Psychological Societ