ABSTRACT
Implicit tests of memory have become very popular. Age-related differences between young and older children typically observed on explicit memory tests are largely reduced with implicit memory testings. Yet to draw conclusions about the developmental invariance of priming from findings on one single type of implicit memory test seems problematic because of dissociations observed between different implicit tests. These dissociations have led researchers to classify memory tasks according to the forms of information they access or the type of processing they require. Developmental research has extensively demonstrated that existing semantic knowledge is a crucial factor in accounting for age-related differences in explicit memory performance. The conditions should be studied in which age-related differences can be observed as well as what kind of conceptual knowledge and conceptual processes are responsible for the differences.
