Adult age differences in temporal memory for cyclic actions

Adult age differences in temporal memory for bipolar or cyclic actions were investigated in three experiments. Cyclic actions are ones that have opposite poles in regard to their effect on an object (e.g., opening and closing a purse). For such actions, the critical memory function is to remember which pole occurred last. Temporal memory was tested by having subjects judge which component of a series of bipolar actions had been performed more recently (e.g., opening or closing a purse). Recency judgments were found to be as accurate under incidental memory conditions as they were under intentional memory conditions for both young and elderly adults. The accuracy of recency judgments was less for bipolar actions performed in three cycles than for bipolar actions performed in one cycle for both young and elderly adults. Adult age differences in the accuracy of recency judgments were found to be negligible.