ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses age-related difficulties and problems to do with various aspects of memory. Age-related changes in memory are well documented (Craik & Jennings, 1992; Light, 1991; Salthouse, 1991; Zacks, Hasher, & Li, 1999). The general consensus is that memory performance does decline in older adults, but also that the amount of loss depends very much on the specific memory task under consideration: performance on some tasks drops considerably in older people, whereas performance on other memory tasks shows little or no decline. It is the memory theorist's job to understand this pattern of differential loss and possible compensation (Dixon & Backman, 1995) and the applied researcher's task to show how such age-related changes in memory affect aspects of real-life behavior. The bulk of this chapter is devoted to a review of current theories and data in the field of memory and aging; the practical implications of these findings also are discussed briefly.
