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Age-Related Differences in the Use of Contextual Information in Recognition Memory

A Global Matching Approach

^a Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
^b Department of Psychology, Malone College, Canton, Ohio

Ute J. Bayen, Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina, Davie Hall, CB#3270, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 E-mail: ubayen{at}unc.edu.

Decision Editor: Toni C. Antonucci, PhD

Age differences in the processing of contextual information were investigated using the Item, associated Context, and Ensemble (ICE) model (K. Murnane, M. P. Phelps, and K. Malmberg 1999), a general global matching model of recognition memory. In two experiments, young and older adults studied words in environmental contexts and were tested in both the same and different contexts. Patterns of context effects for hit rate, false alarm rate, and d' suggest that older adults process associated context, but have difficulties integrating items and context into an ensemble. Thus, older adults appear to have a specific, rather than a general, deficit in processing contextual information. A deficiency in ensemble processing may be responsible for the prevalent finding that older adults show poorer recognition memory performance than young adults.