Aging and the use of perceptual and temporal information in source memory tasks.

A number of studies have reported age differences in memory for the source of information. S.A. Ferguson, S. Hashtroudi, and M.K. Johnson (1992) suggested that older adults do not efficiently use multiple distinctive characteristics of sources to distinguish between sources in source memory tasks. In the study reported here, participants heard information from 2 sources and later decided whether test items had been presented by Source A, by Source B, or were new. The distinctiveness of both perceptual and temporal characteristics of sources were independently manipulated. Older adults benefited more than young adults from multiple distinctive characteristics of sources. These results question the generality of S.A. Ferguson et al.'s hypothesis.