Effect of Normal Aging on Rate of Forgetting

A verbal paired associate paradigm was used to examine rate of forgetting in a sample of 181 normal adults (age range 18-91 years). Subjects were administered the Expanded Paired Associate Test (EPAT), which includes both acquisition and delayed- recall tasks. Older adults peiformed below the levels obtained by younger ones on both phases of the EPAT. However, analysis revealed no differences among age groups in rate of forgetting. Lower scores for older subjects on the delayed-recall task appeared to reflect differences in initial learning, not an accelerated rate of forgetting. Normative data for rate of forgetting are provided for adults in all age groups.