The use of organizational strategies to improve memory for prose passages

Previous studies have shown that incidental memory for the material increases when older adults are forced to analyze material to the extent necessary to impose an organizational structure. The present experiment sought to extend this finding by examining the effects of enforced organizational strategies on the memory of older adults for textual material. Young and old adults were required to sort the scrambled sentences of a prose passage into the correct order. A subsequent incidental memory test showed that, when older adults were required to make an in-depth analysis to sort the material, their incidental memory for the textual information was approximately equal to that of their younger counterparts. Additional analysis revealed that, although older adults spent more time sorting the material than did younger adults, it was only when required to analyze the material to a sufficient degree that the older adults showed any improvement in memory.