Direct and indirect memory tests: What they reveal about age differences in interference

The effects of interference on memory in younger and older adults were examined in a series of three experiments. In the study task, subjects were presented with a series of sentences, each having both a target, to-be-remembered ending, and a nontarget ending. Older adults showed equal priming of targets and nontargets on an indirect memory test (Experiment 1), whereas younger adults showed greater priming of the targets. In contrast, on direct memory tests (Experiments 2 and 3) both age groups were more accurate for targets than nontargets. This pattern of results is interpreted as evidence that age differences in interference involve selective attention mechanisms, but not elaborative rehearsal processes.