Influence of Cognitive Abilities and Age on Word Recall Performance Across Trials and List Segments

Abstract

Abstract The influence of cognitive abilities and age on multitrial word recall performance was examined for different list segments (i.e., first, middle, and last) and across trials by having 2,497 participants ages 18–98 complete a multitrial word list test along with reference cognitive ability tests. As expected, higher episodic memory ability was associated with better recall on all list segments but with a smaller influence for the last items on the early trials. Performance improved across trials, but there were no relations of the fluid intelligence construct that might be postulated to be associated with effective strategy implementation with any of the recall measures. Advanced age was associated with lower levels of performance, but very few of the age relations were significant after the variation in the reference cognitive abilities was controlled for.