Use of memory strategies among younger and older adults: Results from objective and subjective measures

Memory plays a fundamental role in the identity of people and in human life, as it enables us to interpret our surroundings and make decisions. It is known that the aging process can be accompanied by cognitive decline in some memory sub systems. However, the use of memory strategies can help encoding and retrieval of new information.

The aim of this study was to identify and compare, using objective and subjective measures, which recall strategies are used spontaneously by young and older adults.

Twenty-six first-year college students, and thirty-three seniors enrolled at the Third Age University of the same campus, completed a visual memory test including 18 black and white pictures, memorized a short story, and completed an open question about memory strategies, a memory check list to indicate strategies used, and a memory self-efficacy scale. The Bousfield categorization measure was also calculated from the recall protocol.

Young adults demonstrated better performance than the older adults on the memory tasks, and were also more confident. Both groups reported using similar strategies.

Young and older adults seem to tackle memory tasks in similar ways but young adults outperform seniors.