An Individual Differences Approach to Study Time Allocation across the Adult Lifespan

Adults (ages 20-86) participated in two studies that investigated the effects of aging on study time allocation in a verbal and a spatial task. In both studies increased age was associated with poorer study time allocation based on performance on a prior trial, and effectiveness of allocating study time was related to subsequent memory performance. However, Study 1 revealed that age differences were not due to differences in awareness of prior performance. In Study 2 it appeared that task experience may improve study time allocation on a spatial but not on a verbal task. Furthermore, there was largely a labor-in-vain effect in the tasks across the age groups in the sense that there was little benefit in subsequent performance of studying previously incorrect items longer.

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