Centre for Policy on Ageing



The effects of list-making on recall in young and elderly adults
Author(s)	Orah R Burack, Margie E Lachman
Journal title	The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 51B, no 4, July 1996
Pages	pp P226-P233
Keywords	Memory and Reminiscence ; Adults ; Age groups [elderly] ; Mental ageing.
Annotation	This study examined the effects of list-making and specific aspects of list-making, such as intent and organisation, on memory performance in young and old adults, who were randomly assigned to a list-making or non-list-making condition. In both conditions, subjects performed two memory tasks in which they were presented with a word list followed by written recall and recognition tests. List-making significantly improved older adults' performance on the recall tasks. While the old performed significantly worse than the young in the non-list-making internal-intent recall task (the traditional memory test condition), these significant differences were not found on either of the list-making recall tasks. All list-makers who spontaneously organised their lists while studying the words recalled more items than those who did not. Further research should examine whether these benefits are found in everyday life.
Accession Number	CPA-970704011 A
Classmark	DB: SD: BB: D6
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.