Associative recognition memory for faces: more pronounced age-related impairments in binding intra- than inter-item...

Performance in recognition memory for associations between arbitrarily paired items is substantially disrupted in old age. The present study examined whether older adults show more or less of a deficit when the to-be-associated items can be 'unitized' into a single representation during encoding. Results revealed that older adults are disproportionately impaired in their memory for unitizable face-pairs, suggesting substantial age deficits in unitization processes required for the formation of associations between highly overlapping stimuli. Potential compensatory mechanisms are discussed that may account for these preliminary results of a selective age deficit in the encoding or retrieval of intra-item associations.