The role of pre-experimental knowledge in text processing in adulthood.

The present investigation was designed to examine the effects of pre-experimental knowledge on the text recall of younger (mean = 23.1 years), middle aged (mean = 44.2 years), and older (mean = 66.8 years) adults. The subjects were presented with biographical sketches of famous entertainment figures selected such that normatively differential levels of pre-experimental knowledge about the figures was possessed by the various age groups. Subjects recalled the texts immediately after input and again after a delay of one week. Analyses indicated that, at the immediate test, younger subjects remembered the texts better than the middle-aged and older subjects. However, at the delayed test, the performance of the younger subjects did not differ significantly from either older group. In addition, age interacted with story type. The pattern of results suggested that age differences in text processing may be present or absent depending on the level of pre-experimental knowledge about the to-be-remembered topic possessed by the various age groups.