A recognition-memory paradigm was used to test two hypotheses, storage and retrieval, which account for the adult age decrement seen in recall. Partial storage was minimized by using items in the recognition list which were similar to the to-be-remembered items. Recognition performance was unaffected by adult age differences, thereby supporting the retrieval hypothesis. However, older persons made a greater number of semantic errors in the recognition test list supporting the storage hypothesis. While the error difference did not affect overall recognition performance, the result does indicate some caution is necessary in interpreting age-recognition interactions.
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