Characteristics of associative learning in younger and older adults: Evidence from an episodic priming paradigm.

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Abstract
Two experiments investigated age differences in the encoding of fissociative information during a speeded naming task. In both experiments, semantically unrelated prime-target word pairs were presented 4 times, in either massed or spaced fashion, during the learning phase. An immediate or delayed test trial was presented following the fourth presentation. In Experiment 1, participants named both the primes and the targets. Younger and older adults showed similar benefits when naming targets that were part of a consistent prime-target pairing compared with targets presented with different primes at each presentation. In Experiment 2, participants named only the target word. Younger adults showed a benefit for consistently paired words, whereas older adults showed no benefit for consistently paired words. The results of the test trials showed a greater benefit for massed repeated words than for spaced repeated words at the immediate test and a reversed pattern at the delayed test. This spacing by test delay interaction was evident in response latency in Experiment 1 and in cued recall performance in Experiment 2. One of the recurring interests in the area of learning and memory is the process of forming associations in memory. Be- ginning with simple paired associate learning before the turn of the century, this interest remains a central topic in studies of both episodic and semantic memory (Crowder, 1976). The present research examines the encoding of associative informa- tion within an episodic priming paradigm. Episodic priming refers to the benefit in speed and accuracy in making a response to a word when it is accompanied by another word with which it was paired earlier in the experiment (e.g., paired associates; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1979). This article has two general goals. The first goal is to examine age differences in the encoding and retention of associative in- formation in older adults as compared with younger adults. One suggestion regarding age differences in memory performance is that older adults are particularly deficient in their ability to cre- ate novel associative links in memory (MacKay & Burke, 1990). The present study examines this issue in some detail while avoiding some of the difficulties encountered in previous studies.

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