ABSTRACT
The phrase “senior moment” is increasingly common in everyday conversations among people of a certain age. Most such “moments” center on the kinds of errors that adults of all ages make, such as forgetting where you left your keys or parked your car, or the name of a person you’ve just been introduced to. Nonetheless, older adults believe that such moments are increasingly common (Hertzog, Lineweaver, & McGuire, 1999), and much of the cognitive gerontology literature would agree with this observation (see Balota, Dolan, & Duchek, 2000; Craik & Jennings, 1992; Kausler, 1994; Zacks, Hasher, & Li, 2000). There are, indeed, many circumstances under which the memory performance of older adults is poorer than that of younger adults.
