Paired-associate learning in young and old adults as related to stimulus concreteness and presentation method

This study investigated the learning of young and old adults as related to two variables, stimulus concreteness (low vs. high) and presentation method (recall vs. multiple choice vs. associate matching). The main findings were: (a) the elderly did not perform as well as the young adults, (b) for both age groups performance was better for the pairs with concrete stimuli than for the pairs with abstract stimuli, and (c) for both age groups performance was best with the associative matching method and poorest with the recall method. The paired-associate performance of the elderly is characterized by deficiencies in both response learning and associative learning.