Comparison of within-group variabilities across older and younger adults: a meta-analysis

The hypothesis that individual differences in performance scores increase with increasing adult age was reviewed. A meta-analysis of memory articles appearing in the Journal of Gerontology from 1985 to 1990 was conducted to examine potential age differences in within-group variabilities. There was no strong evidence in the data reported here that overall younger adults are consistently more alike in their memory abilities than are older adults. This result was obtained whether the younger group consisted of students or nonstudents, which suggests that the use of unequal age ranges does not contribute to heterogeneity of variances in memory research.