A mnemonic procedure, a method of loci, was used with men and women over 60 years old in two studies of free recall. The learners take a mental trip through their residences stopping in order at 16 places. Experimental subjects were able to master the mnemonic and apply it effectively. (Author)

Prior research has shown that adults generally remember pictorial stimuli better than printed words. The present study was designed to determine whether memory for these two visual modes might be differentially affected by age. These results indicate that memory processes in the elderly differ quantitatively and not qualitatively. (Author)

This article examines older adult preferences for instrumental vs. expressive learning activities. Course title selections and actual learning activity information were analyzed. Interviews with 256 Nebraskans, 55 or older, (average age was 68.11) were obtained. It was concluded that more instrumental learning opportunities must be made available…

A group of young and elderly females were tested on a paired-associate task. The results indicated that older individuals made more intrusion errors on the CVCs high in AV on the Glaze norms but low on the Archer norms. (Author)

Younger (N=31) and older (N=21) men participated in a bogus convergent-thinking task in which they rated their effort expenditure after experiencing varying degrees of success. As predicted, results indicated younger, but not older men perceived they tried harder when they succeeded relative to when they failed. (Author)

The tendency of more than 1100 males and females aged 17-92 to daydream about the past, present, and future was determined. Contrary to common belief, no linear relation between age and daydreaming about the past was observed, and all temporal orientations were of near equal strength at all ages. (Author)

Recent publications of longitudinal and sequential analyses of psychometric data have been cited as evidence for "the myth of intellectual decline" with age. This term "myth" has been interpreted by many gerontologists to mean that intellectual functioning does not decline even late in life (except shortly before death). Furthermore, this…

Subjects in three age groups (N=96) who resided at home were tested on appreciation and comprehension of 12 conservation and 12 nonconservation jokes. Cognitive perceptual theory of humor applies in old age as in childhood, with appreciation depending on a match between ability level and cognitive demand of the joke. (Author)

This study investigates the effects of age, level of education, and institutionalization on the development of logical thinking. Seven Piagetian tasks, encompassing three levels of difficulty, were administered to 34 persons 68 years of age or older. A significant positive relationship was found between success on tasks and educational level.…

The Wickens "release from proactive inhibition" task involves presenting several trigrams of one type for several trials and then shifting to another type. College students, elderly community residents, and elderly rest-home residents were compared on the Wickens task. College students were superior in over-all memory. (Author)

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of aging on encoding and response selection stages of a choice reaction time task. Results suggested reducing stimulus discriminability may affect information processing prior to the encoding stage, but the encoding stage is the primary locus of the slowing which accompanied aging. (Author)

Spatial egocentrism and its relationships to discrimination ability and communicative egocentrism were investigated in a sample of 80 adult males from a single institutional setting. Significant effects of order of task presentation indicated that the experimental procedure influenced performance on the spatial and communicative egocentrism and…