Age-related dissociations in time-accuracy functions for recognition memory: Utilizing semantic support versus building new representations

Time-accuracy functions were derived for younger and older adults for recognition of line drawings of common objects, words of high imagery values, and figures (i.e., Chinese characters). We found that in the line drawing and word conditions, older adults were slower than younger adults, but were able to reach the same asymptotic level of performance. In the Chinese character condition, however, an age difference in asymptotic performance appeared. These results are incompatible with either general or process-specific theories of aging of episodic memory, and point at different aging trajectories for memory that utilizes the preexisting semantic network versus memory for representations that have to be built anew.