Aging and source memory: Influences of intention to remember and associations with frontal lobe tests

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Abstract
In a study modelled after Hashtroudi, Johnson, and Chrosniak (1989), young and older adults were examined in two conditions requiring reality monitoring (i.e., discriminating between one external and one internal source) and two conditions requiring source monitoring (i.e., discriminating between two external or two internal sources). Results indicated age-related deficits in internal source monitoring, although the two age groups did not differ in reality monitoring or external source monitoring. Explicit instructions to remember the source of information had no effect on performance. In addition, performance on putative tests of frontal lobe functioning (i.e., the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and tests of verbal fluency) was unrelated to source memory performance. the results are discussed relative to the view that aging may affect the ability to encode perceptual information in a distinctive manner, as well as the ability to reconstruct perceptual information and its relationship to item information.