Memory for discourse in old age

Memory for discourse in old age was examined by comparing the performance of matched groups of old and young subjects in a text recognition task. Subjects listened to a spoken text, and were then required to detect changes in a written version of the text. The delay and amount of material intervening before the relevant portion of the text was re‐presented, were manipulated. The results showed that memory for discourse is generally impaired by aging. The effects of delay showed age differences in retention. Memory for wording (ability to detect non‐semantic changes) declined rapidly in both age groups. While the young showed good retention of meaning (detection of semantic changes was 98 percent correct at 10 seconds delay and 88 percent correct at 40 seconds), semantic information was poorly retained by the old group (detection of semantic Changes fell from 83 percent at 10 seconds to 33 percent at 40 seconds). Comparison of performace across different types of semantic change showed that the old, but no...