Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 53, Issue 1 P60-P69, Copyright © 1998 by The Gerontological Society of America
The effects of age and experience on memory for visually presented music
EJ Meinz and TA Salthouse
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. [email protected]
Increased age is often associated with lower levels of performance in tests
of memory for spatial information. The primary question in the current
study was whether this relationship could be moderated as a function of
one's relevant experience and/or knowledge. Stimulus materials consisted of
short (7-11 note), visually presented musical melodies and structurally
equivalent nonmusical stimuli. Participants (N = 128) were recruited from a
wide range of age and experience levels. Although there were strong main
effects of age and experience on memory for music, there was no evidence
that the age-related differences in memory for these stimuli were smaller
for individuals with moderate to large amounts of experience with music.
