Age differences in memory for two common objects.

An experiment was conducted to see if the laboratory findings of poorer recognition memory performance and more cautious responding by elderly adults could be duplicated in a nonlaboratory setting using common, everyday objects. Thirty old and 30 young adults were asked to sort drawings of the top side of a United States penny and of a pushbutton telephone dial into the following four categories: (1) the one correct drawing, (2) drawings that could be correct if the first were not, (3) possibly correct drawings, and (4) incorrect drawings. Results showed that older adults were more often incorrect but more confident in their responses than young adults.