Age-related differences in associative memory depend on the types of associations that are formed.

Building on well-established findings of age-related decline in associative memory, we examined whether the magnitude of age differences depends on the types of associations that are formed. Specifically, because of predominant age-related changes in the hippocampus, we expected to find larger age differences in recognition of between-domain than within-domain associations. Twenty younger and 20 older healthy adults were given two associative recognition tests, using face-name and word-word pairs, that were matched for difficulty level. As hypothesized, a three-way interaction indicated that, relative to item recognition, age differences in associative recognition were greater for between-domain face-name associations than for within-domain word-word associations. This dissociation is consistent with the idea that the hippocampus plays a prominent role in binding information received from distal neocortical regions. The discussion focuses on the roles of recollection and familiarity in supporting associative memory as well as implications for the remediation of age-related memory decline.