Retrieval failure in the presence of retrieval cues: A comparison of three age groups

Cued recall of preteens, young adults, and senior adults (480 Ss) was compared under 7 conditions of practice. (Preteens were 11-12 yrs old; young adults were college students; senior adults had a mean age of 47.5 yrs.) The independent variable was the number of items in the list which began with the same letter of the alphabet; the number of items per alphabetic cue was 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12. The interaction between age and the number of items per cue was not significant, thus permitting the inference that retrieval failure due to the number of items per cue was invariant with age. This result is discussed in terms of cue overload, and the suggestion is offered that cue overload may result from information lost when memory traces carrying the same retrieval information interact and are recoded. Further analyses pursued the nature and locus of the items not recalled by preteens and senior adults, and the judgment is made that the retrieval failure in these 2 age groups, although comparable in quantity, is probably different in quality. Also reported is the finding that, under free-recall conditions, senior adults were able to recall as well as young adults, and this result was related to the greater opportunity for meaningful organization in free recall than in cued-alphabetic recall. (French summary) (30 ref)