No evidence of age-related increases in unconscious plagiarism during free recall

In three experiments younger and older participants took part in a group generation task prior to a delayed recall task. In each, participants were required to recall the items that they had generated, avoiding plagiarism errors. All studies showed the same pattern: older adults did not plagiarise their partners any more than younger adults did. However, older adults were more likely than younger adults to intrude with entirely novel items not previously generated by anyone. These findings stand in opposition to the single previous demonstration of age-related increases in plagiarism during recall.