Previous studies show that older adults have poorer immediate recall for language but the reason is unknown. Older adults may recall fewer chunks from working memory, or may have difficulty binding words together to form multi-unit chunks. We examined these two hypotheses by presenting 4 types of spoken sentences for immediate free recall, differing in the number and length of chunks per trial: 4 short, simple sentences; 8 such sentences; 4 compound sentences, each incorporating two meaningful, short sentences; and 4 random word lists, each under a sentence-like intonation. Older adults recalled words from (accessed) fewer clauses than young adults, but there was no aging deficit in the degree of completion of clauses that were accessed. An age-related decline in working memory capacity measured in chunks appears to account for deficits in memory for spoken language.
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