Memory for discourse in old age∗

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Abstract
Memory for discourse in old age was examined by comparing the performance of matched groups of old and young human subjects in a text recognition task. Subject listened to a spoken text and were then required to detect changes in a written version of the text. The delay and amount of material intervening before the relevant portion of the text was represented, were manipulated. Memory for discourse is generally impaired by aging. The effects of delay showed age differences in retention. Memory for wording (ability to detect nonsemantic changes) declined rapidly in both age groups. While the young showed good retention of meaning (detection of semantic changes was 98% correct at 10-s delay and 88% correct at 40-s), semantic information was poorly retained by the old group (detection of semantic changes fell from 83% at 10 s to 33% at 40 s). Comparison of performance across different types of semantic change showed that the old, but not the young, were better at detecting lexical substitutions than subject-object reversals. In old age lexical items are retained better than the relations between them.