Effects of aging and divided attention on recognition memory processes for single and associative information

In the divided attention paradigm to test age-related associative memory deficits, whether the effects of divided attention occur at encoding or retrieval has not been clarified, and the effect on retention has not been studied. This study explored whether and how much divided attention at either encoding, retention, or retrieval diminished accuracy in recognizing a single feature (object or location) and associated features (object+location) by 23 elderly people (13 women; M age = 70.6 yr., SD = 2.8) recruited from a neighborhood community circle, and 29 female college students (M age = 20.8 yr., SD = 1.1). The results showed a significant decline in memory performance for both age groups due to divided attention in location and associative memory at retention, suggesting that the retention process demands attentional resources. Overall, regardless of their relative deficiency in associative memory, older adults showed an effect of divided attention comparable to that of younger adults in a recognition task.