ABSTRACT

Older adults show poorer performance than younger adults onexplicit memory tasks such as recall and recognition. However,there is conflicting evidence as to whether implicit memory isimpaired by aging. Moreover, it appears that older adults performnormally on some implicit memory tasks, but show somewhatreduced performance in some other implicit memory tasks. Thepurpose of this article is to provide a review of the performance ofelderly people on implicit memory tasks. First, current findingsusing various implicit memory tasks are reviewed. Second, weintroduce a number of theoretical accounts to explain the agedifference between explicit and implicit memory. Finally, practicalimplications of implicit memory aging are also discussed.