Inhibition and retrieval of facts in young and older adults

Inhibition is considered to have an important role in memory retrieval. However, many experimental results suggest that its efficiency declines with aging. In this study, the authors tested this hypothesis by using the retrieval-practice task. The retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) observed with this paradigm is normally explained in terms of inhibition. Young (mean age 21.5 years) and older (mean age 71.6 years) adults studied sets of four shared-subject sentences. A retrieval-practice phase required participants to repeatedly recall a subset of the studied sentences. In the final test, participants were provided item-specific cues and told to recall all the studied sentences. RIF was similar for both age groups, suggesting comparable inhibitory efficiency in young and older adults.