Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS

Similar articles found in:
Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences Online
PubMed
PubMed Citation
This Article has been cited by:
other online articles
Search PubMed for articles by:
Burack, O. R. || Lachman, M. E.
Alert me when:
new articles cite this article
Download to Citation Manager

Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 51, Issue 4 P226-P233, Copyright © 1996 by The Gerontological Society of America


ARTICLES

The effects of list-making on recall in young and elderly adults

OR Burack and ME Lachman
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254, USA.

This study examined the effects of list-making, and specific aspects of list-making such as intent (whether one expects to refer back to one's list at the time of recall) and organization, on memory performance in young and old adults. Young and old adults were randomly assigned to a list-making or a non-list-making condition. In both conditions, subjects performed two memory tasks in which they were presented with a word list followed by written recall and recognition tests. On one task, subjects were informed that they would not be allowed to refer to the list at the time of testing (internal-intent). On the other task, subjects were informed that they would be allowed to refer back to the list (external-intent), but actually were not allowed to. Planned comparisons found that list-making significantly improved older adults' performance on the recall tasks. Additionally, while the old performed significantly worse than the young in the non-list-making internal- intent recall task (the traditional memory test condition), these significant differences were not found on either of the list-making recall tasks. Both young and old list-makers who spontaneously organized their lists while studying the words recalled more items than subjects who did not organize their lists. These findings suggest future directions for both theoretical and applied research in the area of memory and aging.

This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc SciHome page
J. M. Fitzgerald
Younger and Older Jurors: The Influence of Environmental Supports on Memory Performance and Decision Making in Complex Trials
J. Gerontol. B. Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci., February 1, 2000; 55(6): 323P - 331.
[Abstract] [Full Text]





HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
All GSA journals The Gerontologist
Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
Copyright © 1996 by The Gerontological Society of America.