Age-related differences in the use of redundancy.

Abstract

The use of redundancy by different-aged subjects was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment I, orthographic redundancy was examined in two age groups (aged 18 to 22 and 62 to 92 years) using a task that minimized retrieval and the reliance on other forms of redundancy. With these controls no differences in the use of redundancy were found. Increasing the redundancy had similar effects in both age groups. In Experiment II the use of grammatical redundancy by different age groups (aged 20 to 39, 40 to 59, and 60 to 80 years) was assessed using a recognition test for nouns from "presuppositional" sentences. Older subjects made better use of the grammatical redundancy inherent in such sentences, as evidenced by larger differences between the recognition of new and given items from the sentences. Older subjects may use grammatical redundancy more than young subjects in an attempt to compensate for memory problems.