Age differences in the use of imagery in integrating new and old information in memory

A syllogistic reasoning task was used to assess the ability of two adult age groups to use imagery. Answers to memory and inference test questions depended on explicitly provided information, but answers to integration test questions required the use of information drawn from semantic memory. Overall, older adults obtained significantly lower scores than younger adults. However, imagery instructions facilitated the memory score for spatial relations in the paragraph condition for both age groups, suggesting that there may be no deficit in the ability to use imagery as a semantic feature. Imagery instructions also facilitated integration and inference scores in both paragraph and sentence presentation for young adults but facilitated only the integration score in the paragraph condition for older adults. These results suggest that older adults can use imagery as a control process but are less likely than younger adults to use imagery as a strategy in abstract situations.