Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women

A mixed-modality (visual and auditory) continuous recognition task, followed immediately by a final recognition test, was administered to young (18-23 years), mid-life (38-50 years), and older (60-74 years) women. Subjects gave recognition responses for both the words and their presentation modality. Although older adults remembered less information about input mode than did the two younger groups, the age decrement was not the result of faster forgetting of such information by the elderly. When a ceiling effect at the initial lag was taken into account, forgetting rates for both words and input mode were comparable across the adult life span.