Young (17 to 25 yr. of age) and old (61 to 82 yr. of age) subjects were tested for recognition and cued recall of famous surnames. Old subjects recalled and recognized more names than young subjects, and old subjects were less subject to recognition failure of recallable names than were young subjects. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that older subjects have a greater number and variety of both episodic and semantic associations with the surnames of famous people and therefore should be better able to recognize and recall these kinds of materials.
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