Aging effects in item and associative recognition memory for pictures and words

Item and associative recognition for pictures and words with college-age young adults and 60-75-year-old adults were examined in the experiment reported in this article. The diffusion model (Ratcliff & McKoon, 2008) was used to extract estimates of components of processing from the empirical values of accuracy and correct and error response time distributions. The model fit the empirical data well for both picture and word stimuli. Results showed that boundary separation was larger and nondecision time was longer for older relative to young adults. Drift rates were not lower for older adults for item recognition but they were for associative recognition, indicating that the richer structure of pictures did not provide an enhanced ability to form associations for the older adults. There were also significant correlations among the components of processing across the tasks of the experiment, suggesting common factors, but participants' accuracy and response times did not significantly correlate within and across the tasks.