Proactive Interference Effects on Aging: Is Inhibition a Factor?

Elderly people show memory deficits over short retention intervals. One explanation for this effect that has been proposed is that the elderly have problems with inhibiting irrelevant material. To test this proposition, younger and older adults were compared on a short-term cued recall task in which proactive interference was manipulated. Elderly people were expected to be more susceptible to PI than the younger group. While there were age differences in absolute levels of performance there was no evidence for differential susceptibility to PI. The error patterns were the same for both groups suggesting that over short retention intervals, inhibition processes do not deteriorate with age.