Associative Deficit in Recognition Memory in a Lifespan Sample of Healthy Adults

Advanced age is associated with decrements in episodic memory which are more pronounced in memory for associations than for individual items The associative deficit hypothesis (ADH) states that age differences in recognition memory reflect difficulty in binding components of a memory episode and retrieving bound units To date ADH has received support only in studies of extreme age groups and the Influence of sex education and health on age related associative deficit is unknown We address those issues using a verbal paired associate yes no recognition paradigm on a lifespan sample of 278 healthy well educated adults In accord with the ADH greater age was associated with lower hit and greater false alarm rates and more liberal response bias on associative recognition tests Women outperformed men on recognition of items and associations but among normotensive participants women outperformed men only on memory for associations and not on item recognition Thus although supporting ADH in a large lifespan sample of healthy adults the findings indicate that the effect may be partially driven by an age related increase in liberal bias in recognition of associations Sex differences and health factors may modify the associative deficit regardless of age