Formatting the The Effect of Aging 1

Document:

- margins 1 inch on all

sides
- entire document Running Head: THE EFFECT OF AGING ON MEMORY
double spaced and in 12
point font (Times
Roman or Courier
preferred)
- header (first few
words of title) and page
number in top right of
all pages (excluding
figures)
- indent first line of The Effect of Aging on Direct and Indirect Tests of Memory
every paragraph (except
abstract) Stacey Bryant and Steven Harvey
- use a single space after
all punctuation
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

Psychology 110, Lab B

April 12, 2005

Title Page:
Dr. Judy Caldwell, Instructor
- summarize the main
idea of the paper Camosun College
- should include the IV,
DV, and the relationship
between them

Contains three
elements:
1. running head -
abbreviated title; max of
50 characters written at
top left of page
2. title - typed in upper
and lowercase letters,
centered left to right and
position 1/3 down the
page
3. authors and affiliation
- centered below title
 The Effect of Aging 2
Abstract:
- brief, comprehensive Abstract
summary of the paper
- allows readers to
survey the contents of The present experiment investigated the performance of 64 older
the paper quickly
- should not exceed 120 and younger subjects on a direct (free recall) and indirect (word
words
- it is on its own page,
as a single paragraph
stem completion) test of memory. It was hypothesized that older
(not indented) with
‘Abstract’ centered at subjects would not perform as well as younger subjects on the
the top
- should be concise free recall task but would perform similarly to their younger
- should be self
contained
- report what is in the counterparts on the stem completion task. The results supported
paper, do not evaluate it
- do not include the hypothesis; younger subjects performed significantly better
information that is not
in the paper
than older subjects on the free recall task, whereas no significant

The Abstract should difference was found between the two age groups on the stem
include the following:
- the hypothesis under completion task. These results are discussed in terms of their
investigation
- pertinent participant
information important for current theories of memory.
- experimental method
used
- the findings as they
relate to the hypothesis
- conclusions and/or
implications of the
findings
 The Effect of Aging 3

Introduction: The Effect of Aging on Direct and Indirect Tests of Memory

- used to introduce the
problem under
investigation and
A common complaint among elderly adults is that they do
describe the research
strategy not remember as well as they did when they were younger. This
- it begins on a new
page with the title of the complaint has led to a great deal of research investigating age-
paper centered at the top

related differences in memory performance. Many of these

The Introduction
should include the studies have compared young and elderly adults on direct and
following:
- a review of the
literature
indirect tests of memory. The findings of such studies typically
- a discussion on how
the research was demonstrate that older adults perform at a comparable level to
conducted
- a description of the their younger counterparts on indirect tests but perform at a lower
variables
- the hypothesis under
investigation level than younger subjects on direct tests.
- the rationale for the
hypothesis Most studies investigating memory in the elderly have used
*do not discuss the
results you obtained in
tests that assess episodic memory abilities. Episodic memory is
the introduction
memory for personally experienced events as they occur in a

particular temporal/spatial context (Tulving, 1985). Examples of

Hints on writing the episodic memory tests include direct tests such as recognition and
paper:
- use an active rather recall. These tests require a subject to consciously recollect a
than passive voice
- use the third person
rather than the first previous episode. Studies that have investigated episodic memory
person
- use past tense to abilities in older adults have typically demonstrated that these
describe variables
manipulated and
methods used
individuals do not perform as well as their younger counterparts
- use present tense for
conclusions drawn (Rabinowitz & Ackerman, 1982). For example, it has been

consistently found that older subjects perform at a lower level than

younger subjects on test involving the free recall of information;

older subjects demonstrate impaired performance in free recall for

 The Effect of Aging 4
Citations:
- always cite the author
words (Erber, 1974; Perlmutter, 1978; White, 1982) and prose
(last name only) and year
of publication (Gordon & Clark, 1974), as cue recall for paired associates
- when there is one or
two authors, cite the (Rabinowitz, 1984; Steele & Anderson, 1982; Wilson, Carpender,
name and date every
time the reference
occurs & Farmen, 1992; Young & Miller, 1993; Zimmerman, 1997).
- when there are three or
more authors, cite all The impaired performance of older adults on direct tests of
the names and date the
first time the reference
occurs, and then first
memory has not only been observed in the laboratory, but is also
author followed by ‘et
al.’ and the year for all prevalent in situations representing real life experiences (Kausler
remaining occurrences
& Lichty, 1988; Morrell, Park, & Poon, 1989). For example, older

individuals demonstrate difficulty in recalling information on

medicine labels (Morrell, et al., 1989) and in written passages

(Gordon & Clark, 1974), as well as remembering activities they

have performed (Kausler & Lichty, 1988). Moreover, Maylor

(1990; 1991) demonstrated that older adults are also impaired in

their ability to recognize and name faces and tunes, and Cohen and

Personal Faulkner (1986) found that older adults had difficulty recognizing
communication is cited
in the text only, not in
the reference list
proper names. L. D. Shultz (personal communication, December 3,

2000) also found younger adults performed better on a memory

task involving object location than did older adults.

Note: when using the In contrast to direct test performance, however, older subjects
term ‘and,’ use ‘and’
outside parentheses, and have been found to perform similarly to younger subjects on
use ‘&’ within
parentheses
indirect tests of memory. Indirect tests of memory are those that

do not require the conscious recollection of a previous episode, but

are indeed affected by those previous experiences. An example of

an indirect is word stem completion, where the participant is

 The Effect of Aging 5

provided with an incomplete word (e.g., mo---) and is asked to

report the first word that comes to mind to complete the stem.

An example of an experiment comparing the performance of

young and older participants on an indirect test was conducted by

Light and Singh (1987). These researchers found that older

subjects scored comparable to younger subjects on tasks involving

word stem completion and masked word identification. Moreover,

Light and Albertson (1989) showed that older subjects

demonstrated intact performance on a n indirect test of memory for

categories, whereas performance on a direct test for the same

information was impaired.

The present experiment compared direct and indirect memory

performance for a list of 40 words across older and younger adults.

Specifically, words were presented to subjects one at a time,

visually on a computer screen. For the free recall task, subjects

were asked to recall, in any order, the words that were presented.

For the indirect test of memory, word stems corresponding to

words presented on the computer screen and new words were

presented, and subjects were asked to complete each of the word

stems with the first word that came to mind. Based on previous

research demonstrating age related declines in performance on

direct tests but little or no decline on indirect tests of memory, it

was expected that age would influence the direct test performance

but would not affect indirect test performance.

 The Effect of Aging 6
Method:
- describe in detail how
the study was conducted
Method
- it allows the reader to
evaluate the procedures Participants
and replicate if desired
- it is typically divided Sixty-four participants were tested in this experiment. Thirty-
into three subsections:

two of these participants were recruited from the University of

1) Participants: Victoria subject pool, and constituted the younger group. Their
- include a description
of the selection and
assignment of
ages ranged from 18 to 25 years, with a median age of 19 years.
participants to groups
- include demographic There were 18 females and 14 males in the younger group. The
information such as sex
and age remaining 32 participants constituted the older group. These

participants were community-dwelling adults recruited through a

subject pool established by the Department of Psychology at the

University of Victoria. The ages of this group ranged from 60 to

82 years with a median age of 70 years. The older group consisted

of 20 females and 12 males.

Materials and Apparatus

2) Materials and
Apparatus: The materials used in this experiments consisted of a list of
- include a description
of the materials (e.g.,
word list) and apparatus
40 semantically unrelated nouns, 5 letters in length (see
(i.e., equipment) used
and their function Appendix for a complete list of words used in this experiment).
- describe materials in
enough detail to that A Macintosh IMAC with a 17-inch colour monitor was used to
others can replicate
- a copy of the materials
can be included in an present the words to the participant. The words were presented in
Appendix at the end of
the paper 16-point font and were written in black on a grey background.

For each target word on the list, a word stem was created that

consisted of the first two letters of the word, followed by three

dashes (e.g., mot--). An additional list of 40 word stems, not

corresponding to the list of target words, was also created. The

 The Effect of Aging 7

entire set of 80 word stems were typed in 12-point, Helvetica

font on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper. The words stems

were listed on the page in random order.

Procedure
3) Procedure:
- summarize in detail Participants were tested individually in the presence of the
each step of the
procedure in enough
detail that the reader
experimenter. The words were presented to the participant, one at
could replicate the study
a time, for 2 seconds. A randomization scheme was used to create

a different order of presentation for each participant. Immediately

The Procedure should
include the following:
- instructions to following the presentation of each word, a patterned mask
participants
(summarized or (&&&&&&&&) was presented for 2 seconds and then erased.
paraphrased)
- a description of the
formation of groups
After a 2 second delay, the next word was presented. Subjects
- specific experimental
manipulations used were instructed to read each word aloud. Once all 40 words were
- a description of
randomization and presented, half of the subjects from each age group were given a
counterbalancing
procedures
piece of paper and were asked to write down all the words they

could recall. Once this task was complete, the subjects were given

a second piece of paper containing the 80 word stems, and were

asked to complete the word stems with the first 5-letter word that

came to mind. For counterbalancing purposes, the remaining half

Results:
- summarize the data
collected and the of the subjects in each age group were given the tests in opposite
statistical analyses
conducted order (i.e., they received the stem completion task first, followed
- mention all relevant
results, even those that
run counter to the
by the free recall task).
hypothesis
- present the facts Results
gathered, do not
interpret or evaluate The level of significance set in this experiment was .05. The
them

mean number of words recalled by the elderly group was 25.6 (sd =
 The Effect of Aging 8
Descriptive statistics:
- include a summary of
2.6) and the mean number of words recalled in the young group
the descriptive statistics
(e.g., means and was 36.3 (sd = 1.9). The mean number of word stems completed
standard deviations of
each group) with words from the study phase was 33.9 (sd = 1.7) and 32.0 (sd =
- these values can be
presented in a table or a
figure 2.1) for elderly and younger group, respectively. See Table 1 and
- when using tables and
figures, be sure to refer Figure 1 for a summary of the descriptive statistics.
to them in the text

Inferential Statistics:
These data were analyzed using an ANOVA. The main effect
- be sure to state the
significance level used of age was not significant F(1, 62) = 1.03, p = .33. The main
(this value is known as
alpha or the type I error effect of test was also not significant, F(1, 62) = .89, p = .62. The
rate) and it may be best
stated at the beginning
of the results section interaction between age and test, however, was statistically
- include information
about the value of the significant test F(1, 62) = 4.36, p = .03, suggesting that younger
test statistic (e.g, r, t, or
F), the degrees of
freedom and the
subjects reported more words in the free recall task than the older
obtained p value
subject, but the two age groups used an equal number of old words
Note: statistical notation
should be italicized in the stem completion task.
(e.g., r, t, F, sd, etc.)

Discussion
Discussion:
- evaluate and interpret The hypothesis under investigation in the current report was
the results in terms of
the original hypothesis
- open with a clear
that older individuals would not perform as well as younger
statement of support or
nonsupport for the subjects on a direct test of memory, but indirect test performance
hypothesis
- discuss the results in would remain invariant across the two groups. The findings
terms of previous
research (the discussion
should link logically supported this hypothesis.
with the introduction)
- if difficulties arose The current results are consistent with numerous other studies
during the research
process, they should be
discussed here
demonstrating that older adults do not perform as well as younger
- a discussion of
implications and adults on laboratory tasks requiring conscious recollection (Erber,
applications of the
research can be included 1974; Gordon & Clark, 1974; Perlmutter, 1978; White &

Cunningham, 1982) as well as those showing that older adults do

 The Effect of Aging 9

not perform well on everyday tasks requiring episodic memory

(Gordon & Clark, 1974; Kausler & Lichty, 1988; Morrell, et al.,

1989; Squire, 1987; Stovic & Peters, 1988).

The present findings are also consistent with those that have

found comparable performance across younger and older subjects

on indirect tests of memory (Light & Albertson, 1989; Light &

Singh, 1987).

Early work on memory and aging has found that older

individuals do not perform as well as their younger counterparts on

memory tasks. These studies, however, have used episodic

memory tests that require the conscious recollection of previous

experiences. When memory tasks that do not require this kind of

conscious recollection are used to compare the two age groups,

older individuals do not show the same kind of decline in

performance. The present study also demonstrated this pattern and

serves to expand upon previous research studying the effects of

aging on memory.
 The Effect of Aging 10
References:
- all citations used in the
References
paper must appear in the
reference list, and all Cohen, G., & Faulkner, D. (1986). Memory for proper names:
papers in the reference
list must appear in the Age differences I retrieval. British Journal of Developmental
paper
- the reference section
begins on a new page Psychology, 4, 187-197.
with ‘References’
centered at the top Erber, J. T. (1974). Memory for unattended events: Remembering
- the reference section is
double spaced
- each work is
with and without awareness. Memory and Cognition, 12,
distinguished by a
hanging indent (the first 105-111.
line of each work is
flush with the left Gordon, S. K., & Clark, W. C. (1974). Application of signal
margin, and subsequent
lines are indented five
spaces) detection theory to prose recall and recognition in elderly and

Creating the reference young adults. Journal of Gerontology, 29, 64-72.

list:
- the list is alphabetized
Light, L. L., & Alberson, S. A. (1989). Direct and indirect tests of
by the first authors’ last
names
- report the authors last memory for category exemplars in young and older adults.
name and initials (i.e.,
do not report full first Psychology and Aging, 4, 487-492.
names)
- if a single author has
more than one work, put Light, L. L., & Singh, A. (1987). Implicit and explicit memory in
the works in order of
year, beginning with the young and older adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
earliest
- works by a single Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 531-541.
author precede works
with more than one
author with the same Maylor, E. A. (1990). Recognizing and naming faces: Aging,
last name
- works with the same memory retrieval, and the tip of the tongue state. Journal of
first author and with
different additional
authors are ordered by Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 45, 215-226.
the name of the second
author Morrell, R. W., Park, D. C., & Poon, L. W. (1989). Quality of
Note: never change the instructions on prescription drug labels: Effects on memory
order of authorship
within a reference!
and comprehension in young and old adults. Gerontologist,

29, 345-354.
 The Effect of Aging 11

Types of References:
Perlmutter, M. (1978). What is memory aging the aging of?

Developmental Psychology, 14, 330-345.

Rabinowitz, J. C. (1984). Aging and recognition failure. Journal

of Gerontology, 39, 65-71.

Rabinowitz, J. C., & Ackerman, B. P. (1982). General encoding

Chapter in an edited
book
of episodic events by elderly adults. In F. I. M. Craik & S.

Treub (Eds.), Aging and cognitive processes (pp. 145-154).

New York: Plenum.

Book Squire, L. R. (1987). Memory and brain. New York: Oxford

Press.

Edited book
Steele, M., & Anderson, P. G. (Eds.). (1982). Memory.

Washington, DC: Hemisphere.

Book not in first edition Stovic, P. T., & Peters, L. M. (1988). Implicit and explicit

memory (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Journal article Tulving, E. (1985). How many memory systems are there?

American Psychologist, 40, 385-398.

Online journal article
based on a print source White, R. (1982). Retrieval problems in the elderly [Electronic

version]. Aging Research, 2, 221-232.

Online journal article in Wilson, P. C., Carpender, L., & Farmen, T. L. (1992, March 23).
an Internet-only journal
Investigations into implicit and explicit memory. Memory

Processes, 3, Article 001a. Retrieved September 18, 2000,

from http://journals.org/psyc/volume8/pre0051435a,html

Young, C., & Miller, V. R. (1993). A comparison of memory

 The Effect of Aging 12

Online abstract
abilities across young and elderly participants [Abstract].

Aging Psychology, 50, 770-785. Retrieved March 28, 1995

from http://abstracts.org/psych/volume12/pre0009878b.html

Unpublished paper Zimmerman, P. (1997, December). A comparison of young and

presented at a meeting
older participants on a fragment completion task. Paper

presented at the meeting of the American Psychological

Association, Los Angeles, CA.

 The Effect of Aging 13

Tables: Table 1
- present data in a clear
format
- they should
Means (and Standard Deviations) of Memory Test Scores for Elderly
supplement the text, not
duplicate it and Young Adults in the in the Recall and Stem Completion Tests.
- tables are numbered 1,
2, 3, etc. and need to be __________________________________________
referred to in the text by
their number
Age
__________________________________________
Creating a table:
- the table is on a new Test Young Elderly
page after the references
- give the table a clear
but brief title (italicized) __________________________________________
- use exact numerical
values Recall 36.3 (1.9) 25.6 (2.6)
- use double spacing
and horizontal lines
Stem Completion 32.0 (2.1) 33.9 (1.7)
__________________________________________
 The Effect of Aging 14

Note: In APA style, any

Figure Caption
illustration other than
tables are referred to as Figure 1. The mean number of target words recalled and used in
figures
the stem completion task by young and elderly participants.

Figures:
- figures present the
data in an easy to
understand, visual
format
- they need to be self
contained
- they are numbered 1,
2, 3, etc. and need to be
referred to in the text by
their number

Creating a Figure:

Figure caption:
- serves as both an
explanation of the figure
and as a title
- it should be a brief,
descriptive phrase
- it goes on a separate
page before the figure
and has ‘Figure
Caption’ centered at the
top
Figure:
- the figure is placed on
a separate page
immediately after the
caption
- the page containing
the figure page has no 40
header 35

Mean number of words

30

remembered
25
Young
20
Elderly
15

10

0
Recall Stem Completion
Memory Test
 The Effect of Aging 16

Appendix: Appendix
- it provides the reader
with detailed
information that would
The list of words used in the experiment.
be distracting in the
paper House Party
- can be used to present
the entire list of stimuli Kayak Shade
used in the experiment

Cheek Flake
Creating an Appendix:
- if you have only one Purse Smile
appendix, label it
‘Appendix’; if you have
more than one
Chair Phone
appendix, label each
with a capital letter Horse Blade
(e.g., Appendix A) in
the order that they are Shirt Cliff
mentioned in the text
- the appendices should
be referred in the text by Motel Sword
their label
- it starts on a new page Steak Wafer
with ‘Appendix’
centered at the top
- the appendix must have a
Radio Cloak
title
Flank Notch

Shark Flame

Field Stamp

Glass Igloo

Paper Camel

Medal Stool

Eagle Board

Money Clamp

Music Jewel

Grass Drink