Levels of processing effects on text memory in older adults

Older adults have difficulty remembering details from what they have read. One theory suggests that age-related declines in processing resources may result in deficient encoding of to-be-remembered information. The Levels of Processing framework maintains that the more deeply and elaborately information is encoded, the better it will be retained. One way of increasing depth and elaboration of encoding is by retrieving information from memory. Read-Attentively-Summarize-Review (RASR) is a deep and elaborate study method that incorporates retrieval practice, in the form of paragraph summaries, into study. RASR was compared to a shallower technique involving rereading. Results of recall testing supported the Levels of Processing framework and the influence of prior testing on delayed recall. Participants in the RASR study group remembered significantly more information on immediate and delayed testing but both groups benefitted on delayed recall testing if they had previously received a recall test after studying. On recognition testing, participants remembered significantly more if they had studied, regardless of technique, than if they had not. Together, findings suggest that explicit instruction in deep and elaborate processing techniques plus additional immediate testing after study may benefit text recall in older adults.