Previous research has examined age effects in rates
of forgetting at short delay intervals of 20–30 min.
The present study examined age effects in three verbal
memory tasks at longer delay intervals of up to 62 days.
Study participants consisted of 371 community-dwelling
men and women comprising three age groups 20–39,
40–59, and 60–79 years. Age differences in
acquisition and 20-min delayed recall were found on each
of the memory tasks (paragraph, word list, and word pairs).
However, all age groups showed equivalent rates of forgetting
after this short delay interval. When participants were
required to retain information for longer delay intervals
(i.e., 1–62 days), increasing age was associated
with faster rates of forgetting for day 1, but not over
longer delay intervals. Age differences in rates of forgetting
for longer delay intervals and the facilitating effects
of prompted recall are discussed in terms of encoding and
storage versus retrieval processes. (JINS,
2001, 7, 79–91.)