Psychology and Aging Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

2000, Vol. 15, No. 4, 648-656 0882-7974/00/S5.00 DOT: 10.1037//D8B2-7974.15.4.648

The Effects of Learning a New Algorithm on Asymptotic Accuracy

and Execution Speed in Old Age: A Reanalysis

Paul Verhaeghen Reinhold Kliegl

Syracuse University University of Potsdam

Time-accuracy curves were derived for 16 younger and 19 older persons who participated in a study on
training in the method of loci (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992). The effects of instruction were to immediately and
permanently boost asymptotic performance and initially slow down the rate of approach to the asymptote.
After extensive practice, rate of approach returned to the initial fast level. Age differences were found in
both asymptotic performance and rate of approach. The effects of instruction and practice, however, were
similar in younger and older adults, but older adults needed 1 session of instruction more than younger
adults did before the intervention showed its full effect.

One of the most replicated findings in the field of cognitive
aging is the age-related decline in recall from episodic memory
(for a meta-analytic overview, see Verhaeghen, Marcoen, & Goos-
sens, 1993; Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997). It is well known that
measures assumed to indicate basic speed of processing are im-
portant mediators between age and episodic memory (for an over-
view, see Salthouse, 1996, and Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997).
Research leading to this conclusion has mostly used correlational
analysis. Recently, however, the influence of basic speed on higher
order cognition has also been examined with an experimental
method. In these studies (Kliegl, Krampe, Mayr, & Liebscher,
1998; Kliegl, Mayr, & Krampe, 1994; Mayr, Kliegl, & Krampe,
1996; Verhaeghen, 1999; Verhaeghen, Kliegl, & Mayr, 1997;
Verhaeghen, Vandenbroucke, & Dierckx, 1998), processing time
is indirectly manipulated through the availability of the external
resource "presentation time," and accuracy is mapped out as a
function of time. A mathematical function relating time to accu-
racy (a time-accuracy function) is then fitted to the data, and the
parameters describing this function are used for subsequent
analysis.
Researchers studying the relation between presentation or pro-
cessing time and cognitive performance in young adults have
demonstrated that this relation is typically nonlinear and well
described by a delayed exponential equation (e.g., Dosher, 1976;
Lohman, 1989; McClelland, 1979; McElree & Griffith,
Wickelgren, 1977). This equation is governed by three parameters.
Performance remains at chance level until a certain point in time
The original research was conducted in the context of the Expertise and
Cognitive Aging Project at the Max Planck Institute for Human Develop-
ment and Education, Berlin, Germany, codirected by Reinhold Kliegl and
Paul B. Baltes.
Coirespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paul
Verhaeghen, Department of Psychology, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse
University, Syracuse, New York 13244-2340; or to Reinhold Kliegl,
Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Post Office Box 60
15 53, D 14415 Potsdam, Germany. Electronic mail may be sent to
pverhaeg@psych.syr.edu or to kliegl@rz.uni-potsdam.de.
(the onset time). From the onset time on, performance rises in a
negatively accelerating curve, that is, the performance curve rises
rather steeply from chance level and then gradually becomes less
and less steep, flattening toward a horizontal asymptote. The third
parameter describing the function is the rate of approach, that is,
the rate at which performance goes from chance level to the
asymptote from the onset time on. More formally, the equation
used to fit the data in the studies described above (assuming that
chance level is zero) is
p = c {1 — exp[(a — t)/b]} for t > a: and
p = 0 for I < a; with a a 0; fc > 0 and e £ 1. (1)
In this equation, p stands for performance or accuracy and t for the
time available; a is the onset time, b is the rate of approach, and c
represents the asymptote. Note that the b parameter as included in
this equation is scaled such that higher b values indicate slower
rates of approach, or, in other words, curves that are less steep.
One important advantage of using the time-accuracy methodol-
ogy is that it allows for a distinction between dynamic effects (i.e.,
effects on rate and onset) and asymptotic effects of aging on
cognitive performance. One obvious consequence of age-related
slowing might be that aging effects the dynamics only of the curve.
1995; In this case, older adults would simply need more time for perfor-
mance to rise above chance level; or they might need more time to
reach their asymptotic level, which would then be equal to that of
young adults; or both onset time and rate differences would be
present. If only dynamic differences are present, then age differ-
ences can be remediated by allowing for more processing time.
Salthouse (1996) called this the limited-time mechanism for cog-
nitive slowing. Aging, however, might also affect the level of
performance ultimately reachable, or even the quality of the final
outcome. Salthouse (1996), for instance, has argued for a simul-
taneity mechanism of cognitive slowing, that is, one consequence
of slowing could be that products of earlier information processing
may be lost by the time that later processing is completed. If earlier
products are needed for accurate performance, then such a mech-
 LEARNING A NEW ALGORITHM
anism might affect the ultimate, asymptotic performance of the
system.
Another advantage of the time-accuracy methodology is that
performance of an individual is now captured in three distinct
parameters that each can be assigned meaning, depending on the
task. Take the onset parameter. For episodic memory, it makes
sense to posit that a word stimulus must be read before it can be in
any way remembered and, conversely, that it will stand a minimal
chance of being remembered as soon as it has been accessed in the
lexicon. Consequently, the onset parameter can be interpreted as
the time needed to recognize the word and access the lexicon. For
the rate of approach parameter, Kliegl (1995) offered an explana-
tion in terms of elaboration rate. The assumption is that partici-
pants studying a list of words generate elaborations (i.e., particular
associations) for each of the stimuli and that the probability of
recall is directly proportional to the number of elaborations that
can be generated (e.g., Craik & Tulving, 1975; James, 1890;
Kausler, 1991, p. 351; note that sheer repetition does not neces-
sarily lead to better recall [e.g., Glenberg, Smith, & Green, 1977],
therefore this component of elaboration seems a necessary ingre-
dient of effective encoding for free recall). Elaborations are as-
sumed to be sampled out of a finite store of associations. Hence,
increased processing time will allow for sampling of more elabo-
rations and consequently to better recall. Kliegl (1995) assumed
that after usage, the elaborations are put back into the store. This
increases the likelihood of sampling elaborations already retrieved
as time increases and will lead to diminishing returns with in-
creased processing time, or in other words, to a time-accuracy
curve flattening to an asymptote. The negative exponential is
compatible with such a stochastic replacement model of learning
(Restle & Greeno, 1970). The asymptote is generally taken to
reflect the maximum strength of activation (McClelland, 1979), or
the carrying capacity of the system (van Geert, 1993), under the
particular circumstances of the task.
Previous time-accuracy research has demonstrated that in rather
simple tasks, such as figural scanning, word scanning, figural
reasoning, and cued recognition (Kliegl et al., 1994; Mayr et al.,
1996), older adults are merely slower in getting performance off
the measurement floor or in reaching the asymptote than young
adults. This suggests that a simple limited-time slowing mecha-
nism is sufficient to explain aging effects in such tasks. However,
for recall, age differences in asymptotic performance have been
found, as well as age differences in the rate of approach parameter
(Kliegl et al., 1998; Verhaeghen et al., 1998, Experiment 1). This
suggests that the elaboration processes slow down with age and
that the carrying capacity of the system for episodic memory
decreases.
There is, however, a possible confound here, in the sense that
strategic processes at encoding and retrieval are possibly important
determinants of episodic recall, and people do differ in the strat-
egies they bring to such tasks (e.g., Verhaeghen & Marcoen,
1996). Behavioral slowing and loss of ultimate accuracy can only
rightfully be traced to mental slowing and to a loss of carrying
capacity when the correspondence axiom (Cerella, 1990) holds,
that is, when we can be certain that young and older adults apply
the same processes (in the same sequence) to a task. If strategy
differences exist, then behavioral slowing and age-related accuracy
differences might be the result of usage of less-than-optimal
strategies by older adults and not of mental slowing or loss of
649
carrying capacity per se. Consequently, more conclusive evidence
for the existence of age-related differences in speed of encoding
processes and in final accuracy should come from research where
strategy differences between younger and older adults have been
minimized.
A line of research that seems particularly promising for our goal
of strategy equalization is the intervention research aimed at elic-
iting cognitive and memory plasticity by teaching older adults
effective cognitive and mnemonic strategies (e.g., Baltes & Labou-
vie, 1973, Baltes & Schaie, 1976; Baltes & Willis, 1982; Denney,
1979; Kliegl & Baltes, 1987; Labouvie-Vief, 1976). It has been
demonstrated that the performance of older adults on memory
tasks can indeed be boosted considerably by simple instruction and
some practice with an efficient mnemonic, such as the method of
loci. In a meta-analysis, Verhaeghen, Marcoen, and Goossens
(1992) found the effect to be about three quarters of a standard
deviation. This demonstration of memory plasticity, in turn, im-
plies that older adults are typically applying suboptimal strategies
to the kind of memory tasks psychologists subject them to in their
laboratories, but so, apparently, are younger adults. In a follow-up
meta-analysis, Verhaeghen and Marcoen (1996) noted that in all
memory-training studies (with only one exception) in which both
a group of younger and older adults were trained, the effects of
training in the older adults were found to be smaller than those in
younger adults. Consequently, younger adults actually benefit
more from memory training than older adults. Thus, it seems that
when younger and older adults are performing identical (and
highly effective) strategies, age differences do not disappear; on
the contrary, they are exacerbated. This observation still leaves us
in the dark as to the locus of the effect: Older adults might be
disproportionally slower than younger adults when using effective
mnemonics (and this could be due to increased onset times, slower
rates of approach, or both), their level of asymptotic performance
might increase less after training, or both. Another possibility is
that older adults need more practice with the strategy than younger
adults and that true equalization of strategy use will only occur
after extended practice.
In this article, we apply the time-accuracy methodology to a
long-term data set that examined plasticity in episodic memory
functioning (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992; Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes,
Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes, 1989, 1990). In this study, a group of 16
younger and 19 older adults were trained in the method of loci and
practiced the method during fifteen 1-hr sessions. The method of
loci is an imagery-based mnemonic that is particularly suited for
serial recall of words. Briefly, in this mnemonic, participants are
instructed to associate each of the words to be remembered with a
particular location (a "locus") in an ordered sequence of locations,
using interactive imagery for the association (see, e.g., Bellezza,
1987, for more details). At retrieval, the user mentally revisits each
location in the correct order and uses the location as a retrieval cue
for the image from which the original word is decoded. In this
study, a series of 30 Berlin landmarks provided the loci. A total
of 38 pretest, instruction, practice, and assessment sessions were
administered over a period of 1 year and 4 months. Given the
extremely long duration of this program, we assume that the
technique will be highly overleamed, and younger and older adults
will be thoroughly equated on strategy use at the end of training
and practice. Data are available for one pretest occasion and nine
posttest occasions. At each of these points during training, serial
650 VERHAEOHEN AND KLIEGL
recall of a list of 30 words was measured at 6 (pretest to sixth
posttest) or 12 (seventh posttest to final posttest) presentation
times per word, ranging between 0.84 s and 20.00 s. In previous
articles reporting on results from this study, data were averaged
across these presentation times. In this article, we reexamined the
data from these different presentation times to derive time-
accuracy functions for each individual at each of the testing
occasions. Previous analysis on this data set revealed sizable
treatment gain for both young and older adults. The age differences
present at pretest were magnified over the course of training and
practice sessions, especially at the longer presentation times, sug-
gesting asymptotic age differences.
The first goal, then, of this article is to assess the effects of
training and practice in the method of loci on the parameters of the
time-accuracy functions. More specifically, we were interested in
capturing the differences between the effects of instruction versus
continued practice on dynamic and asymptotic effects on the
time-accuracy function for serial recall. One interesting aspect of
the previous findings, as seen in Figure 2 in Kliegl et al. (1990) and
Figure 1 in Baltes and Kliegl (1992), is that the curves describing
performance as a function of testing occasions are quite smooth,
rising steeply at first but then gradually flattening toward a hori-
zontal asymptote. At first sight, this seems to suggest that the
transition from an untrained to a trained and then a well-practiced
state is quite undramatic, and it closely follows the general rule of
the power law of practice (Newell & Rosenhloom, 1981). A closer
investigation of the correlation matrix, however, revealed that the
correlation between pretest and the first posttest was quite small,
but correlations were high between the different posttest occasions
(Kliegl et al., 1990). This then suggests no smooth transition, but
indicates that different mechanisms are indeed at play in pretest
and posttest, making for a drastic reordering of participants on the
performance continuum. No such dramatic change occurs between
posttest occasions, suggesting that settling into a well-practiced
state is indeed a smooth transition. We hoped to see this qualitative
shift from learning to continued practice reflected in the parame-
ters of the underlying time-accuracy functions.
Given that the method of loci prescribes a specific strategy, the
meaning of the parameters of the time-accuracy function changes
after posttest. As stated above, the onset time reflects the time
needed for minimal recall of the stimulus. When people are ap-
plying the method of loci correctly, encoding of a word entails
retrieval of the appropriate locus, reading the word, and forming a
combined mental image of the locus and the word. Thus, the onset
time at and after posttest should not only reflect perceptual pro-
cesses needed for word reading, but also the time needed for
retrieval of the locus during the encoding phase of the experiment.
We remain agnostic as to whether these processes occur in paral-
lel; we assume, however, that an increase hi the onset parameter
after training would signify that either the locus retrieval and word
reading processes are executed in a serial fashion, or else that
queuing is occurring somewhere in the parallel stream of process-
ing (Liu, 1996). A decrease in onset time over the course of
practice can mean at least two things: either retrieval of the locus
and word reading become increasingly parallel in their execution,
or the retrieval process is executed in an increasingly faster fash-
ion. The rate-of-approach parameter would still reflect the time
needed for elaboration, which, in this case, means forming and
elaborating on an interactive image. Forming interactive images is
not a strategy that most adults spontaneously apply to serial recall
(Verhaeghen & Marcoen, 1994). Consequently, we expect that,
after posttest, the rate parameter will decrease with continued
practice, because the process of generating an interactive image
will become more efficient. For the transition from pretest to
posttest, we might expect the rate of approach to go up, because
this transition entails a change from strategies that are spontane-
ously applied to the task and are presumably partially automatized
to a new, deliberately controlled way of doing the task. Given that
the method provides an excellent cueing structure for both encod-
ing and retrieval, we would expect asymptotic accuracy to go up
considerably after training. If the sequence of locations is well
learned at the first posttest, then we should expect little change in
asymptote after the first posttest.
The second goal of our reanalysis was to examine age differ-
ences in the parameters and how they change across training
sessions. On the basis of previous research on adult age differences
in time-accuracy functions for recall from episodic memory
(Kliegl et al., 1998; Verhaeghen et al., 1998), we expect initial age
differences in rate of approach and asymptotic performance but not
onset time. One question of particular interest concerns potential
age differences in the nature of the transitions and the possibility
of interactions between age and testing occasions. It is our assump-
tion that comparison of the final sessions of practice, when the
mnemonic is highly overlearned in both age groups, should give us
a good estimate of age differences in memory functioning when
both groups are using an identical highly effective strategy. Al-
though some literature on aging and skill acquisition exists (for
overviews, see Baron & Cerella, 1993, and Salthouse, 1991), our
article is the first to investigate age differences at the level of the
parameters of an underlying performance model, rather than at the
level of observed latencies or observed accuracy.
Method
Detailed information on participants, procedure, and testing materials
can be found in the original articles describing this study (Baltes & Kliegl,
T992; Kliegl et al., 1989, 1990). Here, we briefly reiterate the main points
concerning the method.
Participants
Participants were 16 young adults, ranging in age between 20 and 30
years, and 19 older adults, ranging in age between 66 and 88 years old.
All participants scored above average on the Hamburg-Wechsler-
Intelligenztest fur Erwachsens test (i.e., German version of the WAIS;
Hardesty & Lauber, 1956; young IQ, M = 118, SD = 6; old 1Q, M = 125,
SD = S). All were in good self-reported health. Younger and older adults
did not differ significantly on intelligence and self-reported health
measures.
Design
The entire experimental schedule consisted of thirty-eight 1-hr sessions,
distributed over a period of 1 year and 4 months. After initial assessment,
two phases can be distinguished: a training phase (Sessions 5 and 6) and a
practice phase (Sessions 7 to 37). The last session was a debriefing session.
Materials. Lists of 30 words were used for the assessment of serial
recall. All words were nouns denoting concrete objects. Words used for the
assessment lists appeared only once in the experiment.
 LEARNING A NEW ALGORITHM 651

Training conditions. In each of the training and practice sessions,

scheduled at approximately two sessions per week, 4 lists of 30 words were
administered. Across all sessions of training and practice, each participant
performed 4,380 trials of interactive imagery, linking a word to a location.
During the training phase (Sessions 5 and 6), the method of loci was
explained. Words were presented at time intervals comfortable to each
individual, that is, without time pressure. During the 15 sessions of practice
(Sessions 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, and 35),
presentation of words was experimenter paced. Different presentation
times between 0.84 s and 20.00 s per word were used (6 different times up
until Session 25, 12 after Session 25; see next paragraph for precise
values). Participants were moved to shorter presentation times when they
passed a criterion (50% or 80%) correct. When performance was below
criterion on two successive occasions, longer presentation times were used
again.

Performance Assessment

Assessment of serial recall occurred in Sessions 3 (pretest), 7 (immediate

posttest), 10,13, 16,17, 25, 26/27. 31/32, and 36/37 (practice). There were
two assessment formats reflective of the change in rates of presentation
times after Session 23. At the first seven occasions, 6 lists of 30 words
were administered with presentation times of 20.00 s, 15.00 s, 10.00 s,
5.00s, 3.00s, and l.OOs. At the final three occasions, assessment extended
over two sessions. In the first of these sessions, four lists were administered
at 20 s, 15 s, 11.84 s, and 8.44 s; in the second occasion, eight lists were
administered with presentation times of 6.33 s, 4.75 s, 3.56 s, 2.67
s, 2.00 s, 1.50 s, 1.14 s, and 0.84 s. We decided to drop the shortest
presentation times from the analysis, because it is unlikely that the method
of loci can be applied at very fast presentation rates. (This is an assumption
<
that seems inherent in research using this mnemonic. Studies using the 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
method of loci with college-age adults have used presentation times Session
of 5.00 s and longer; Bellezza & Reddy, 1978; Carlson, Kincaid, Lance &
Hodgson, 1976; De Beni & Comoldi, 1985, 1988; Kemp & van der Krogt, Figure /. The three parameters of the time-accuracy functions for
1985; Lee & Edwards, 1981; Roediger, 1980; Ross & Lawrence, 1968. At younger and older adults as a function of training in the method of loci
shorter times, it may become difficult to both retrieve the locus and start (error bars denote standard error of the mean). The first data point
forming an image.) Therefore, only scores based on the five presentation (Session 3) represents pretraining performance; all other data points are
times of 20.00 s, 15.00 s, 10.00 s, 5.00 s, and 3.00 s were used for the postinstruction.
time-accuracy analysis. Starting with assessment 26 and 27, mean scores
for 11.84 s and 8.44 s were used as an approximation for the 10-s score.
Likewise, a score for the 5.00-s rate was based on the mean of scores of sion interaction on the parameters. As explained in the introduc-
the 6.33-s and 4.74-s rate and for the 3.00-s rate on the mean of scores for tory section, we were interested in capturing the differences be-
lists presented at 3.56 s and 2.67 s per word. tween the effects of instruction versus continued practice on
dynamic and asymptotic effects on the time-accuracy function for
Results serial recall. Therefore, two series of ANOVAs were conducted,
one on the contrast between the pretest and immediate posttest, and
For each individual, the three parameters of the time-accuracy
one on the immediate posttest to final test portion of the learning
function for each testing occasion were estimated by fitting Equa-
tion 1 to the data, with proportion recalled as the dependent
variable and presentation time (in seconds) as the independent
Effects of Age and Training-Practice on Onset Time
variable. The 10 time-accuracy functions for each participant (one
for each occasion based on five lists with different presentation For parameter a, the onset time, neither the main effects nor the
times) were fitted simultaneously, using the Statistical Package for interaction effect reached significance (all Fs < 1, indicating that
the Social Sciences nonlinear regression module. The parameter the effects are very small) in the pretest-to-immediate-posttest
estimates of these individual time-accuracy curves were then av- contrast. In the analysis of the nine testing occasions between
eraged over individuals within each age group to yield average immediate posttest and final test, a main effect was found for
estimates for younger and older adults for each of the occasions. testing occasion, F(8,264) = 3.67, MSE = 0.2Q,p< .001, but not
These estimates are depicted in Figure 1. The models fit the data for age, F(l, 33) = 0.58, MSE = 0.59, m. As can be seen in
quite well; the average pseudo—R2 value for the fit of the individ- Figure 1, the onset parameter tended to decrease over testing
ual curves was .83 for the young (SD = 0.07) and .89 for the old occasions. The main effect of testing occasion, however, was
(SD = 0.05). qualified by an Age X Testing Occasion interaction, F(8,
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine 264) = 2.80, MSE = 0.20, p < .01. (Note that this interaction was
the effects of age, testing occasion, and the Age X Testing Occa- a cross-over Interaction. Hence, no transformation is necessary to
652 VERHAEGHEN AND KLIEGL
account for the effects of general slowing in the onset parameter.)
Regression analysis shows that the decrease in onset time over
testing occasions was entirely due to changes within the older
sample. When we regressed the average onset time on testing
occasion number within each age group, linear regression did not
fit the data of the young group (ff 2 = .00; regression coefficient
—.00); for the old group, however, there was a reliable decrease of
the onset parameter across testing occasions (J?2 = .58; regression
coefficient = -.02). This implies that retrieving the locus and
identifying the stimulus took a constant amount of time in younger
adults, regardless of the stage in practice. For older adults, these
processes sped up with about 20 rns for each additional 1-hr
session of practice.
Effects of Age and Training—Practice on Rate
of Approach
In accordance with the principles outlined in Verhaeghen et al.
(1997), analyses on parameter b, which is the rate of approach,
were conducted on log-transformed scores. After logarithmic
transformation, testing for an Age X Condition interaction be-
comes a test for deviations from a multiplicative model of aging.
That is, we tested whether the young over old ratio of rates
remained constant across testing occasions. This model is in ac-
cordance with extant models of age-related slowing (e.g., Cerella,
1990), which state that central processing in older adults is slowed
by a constant proportion as compared to processing in younger
adults. Given our assumption that perceptual factors would impact
the onset time parameter and not the rate parameter, and given that
no motor response is executed during the encoding stage of this
memory task, we assume that peripheral input-output processes
play no role in the rate parameter. Hence, this parameter should
thus conform to a strictly proportional model.
For the pretest to immediate posttest contrast, only the effect of
testing occasion was significant, F(l, 33) = 6.78, MSB = 18.86,
p < .05. Neither the age main effect, F(l, 33) < 1, MSE = 13.80,
ns, nor the Age X Testing Occasion interaction, F(l, 33) = 1.39,
MSE = 18.86, ns, reached significance. Consequently, one effect
of instruction in the method of loci appeared in the form of
slowing. This slowing is equivalent across age groups, and
younger and older adults do not differ in the rate of approach
before and immediately after training.
For the posttest to final test sessions, a reliable main effect was
found for age, F(l, 33) = 12.79, MSE = 3.52, p < .01. The Age X
Testing Occasion interaction, F(8, 264) = 4.13, MSE = \M,p<
.001, was also reliable, but not the testing-occasion main effect,
F(8, 264) = 1.33, MSE = 1.84, ns. However, as can be seen in
Figure 1, the slowing effect of instruction was not complete in
older adults at the first posttest. Rather, older adults continued to
slow down in the second posttest session.1 Therefore, we reana-
lyzed the data, conducting an ANOVA on the segment of the curve
representing the second posttest to the final posttest. In this anal-
ysis, reliable effects were found for age, F(l, 33) = 35.06,
MSE = 2.19, p < .001, and testing occasion, f(7, 231) = 3.16,
MSE = 0.75, p < .01, but not for the Age X Testing Occasion
interaction, F(7, 231) = 1.40, MSE = 0.75, ns. Thus, after slowing
down at the first and (for older adults) second posttest, elaboration
speed increased again, apparently at the same rate in both age
groups. The age difference in the posttest to final test segment was
highly reliable, with older participants being much slower to reach
asymptote than young adults.
Effects of Age and Training-Practice on Asymptotic Level
of Performance
A problem arose with the analysis of parameter c. Verhaeghen
et al. (1997) suggested to analyze the effects of the asymptotic
parameter (c) by investigating the effect of c on time demand
needed to reach a given level of performance. In other words, not
the parameter c itself is being analyzed, but its impact on the time
needed to reach a given criterion level of recall. This criterion level
necessarily needs to be smaller than the lowest asymptote reached
by any participant in any session—otherwise the time needed
would be indeterminate for participants with an asymptote lower
than the criterion level. As the lowest level was very low indeed
(several people had asymptotes lower than . 1 at one or more of the
early sessions), the Verhaeghen et al. (1997) technique was not
applicable to the present data set. Likewise, an alternative tech-
nique suggested by Verhaeghen et al. (1998; i.e., analyzing the
asymptote after logit transformation) could not be applied because
many participants attained perfect asymptotes in the later sessions,
therefore logit (c) would be indeterminate. Also, no matter how the
data are transformed, this ceiling effect in later sessions makes
conclusions from any type of ANOVA tentative at best.
Because none of the more sophisticated approaches could be
applied, we decided to conduct a standard ANOVA on untrans-
formed c parameters. For the pretest-to-immediate-posttest con-
trast, a reliable main effect was found for testing occasion, F(l,
33) = 71.25, MSE = 0.08, p < .001, and age, F(l, 33) = 7.06,
MSE = 0.06, p < .05, but not for the Age X Testing Occasion
interaction, F(l, 33) = 2.16, MSE = 0.08, ns. This signifies that
older adults had lower asymptotes than younger adults and that
there was a marked positive effect of training on asymptotic
accuracy.
For the posttest-to-final-test portion of the learning curve, only
the age main effect was found to be significant, F(l, 33) = 12.48,
MSE = 0.18, p < .001. Neither the testing occasion, F(8,
264) < 1, MSE = 0.04, ns, nor the Age X Testing Occasion
interaction, F(8, 264) = 1.05, MSE = 0.04, ns, reached signifi-
1
One of the reviewers suggested that the Age X Session interaction in
the posttest-to-final-test segment may falsify general slowing theory, be-
cause the age relation of the parameters changes over sessions (see Cerella,
1990, and Myerson, Hale, Wagstaff, Poon, & Smith, 1990, for theories
describing older adults' performance as a simple function of performance
of younger adults; and Salthouse, 1996, for a more mediator-oriented
version of this view). We wish to point out, however, that these general
slowing perspectives do not contain theoretical statements about the form
of the change in age differences after instruction in a mnemonic; for
instance, the theory makes no claim about whether older adults should
learn a technique equally fast or slower than younger adults. This implies
that there is technically no clear general slowing null hypothesis to falsify.
Contrary to the reviewer, we think our data suggest that correspondence
(i.e., the two groups of participants are applying the same processing steps
in the same order; Cerella, 1990) might indeed be established, but only
after the second posttest session, that is, after the older participants have
reached the peak of mnemonic-induced slowing. From that point onward,
the age difference in rate of processing appears to remain stable, that is, it
conforms to the expectations of general slowing theory.
 LEARNING A NEW ALGORITHM
14
12
O cuting encoding operations). When the peak of slowing and of the
10
Q.
Q. 8 of approach goes down. The lines are almost parallel for the two
6 of instruction and continued practice. At the same time, the dia-
DC 4 groups, namely, first, that the starting point of the curves (i.e., the
Younger Adults
2 Older Adults
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Asymptote
Figure 2. Rate of approach as a function of asymptotic performance and
training session for younger and older adults. The two points in the
left-hand portion of the graph represent performance in Session 3 (pretest);
the arrow indicates the direction of time; successive sessions are connected
with lines.
cance. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, the immediate effects
of training in the old were not restricted to the first posttest. Rather,
asymptotic performance continued to rise in the next session.
Restricting the analysis to the portion of the learning curve from
the second to the final posttest did not substantially alter the results
of the ANOVA [age effect, F(l, 33) = 9.87, MSE = 0.18, p < .01;
testing occasion effect, F(7, 231) < 1, MSE = 0.03, ns; Age x
Testing Occasion interaction, F(7, 231) = 1.06, MSE = 0.18, ns].
Thus, older adults appear to have lower asymptotic levels of
performance across continued practice with the method of loci
than younger adults. [There seems to be a trend toward conver-
gence of the two age groups in the asymptote parameters over
sessions. To assess the size of this effect, we calculated the
percentage of total variance associated with the interaction effect,
using Levin's (1997) Equations 25 and 3, and we found this to be
.06 (i.e., w2 = .00) for the portion of the curve going from posttest
to final test portion of the curve and .0002 (i.e., cu2 = .00) for the
portion extending from the second to the final posttest. Hence, this
apparent convergence is associated with an extremely small effect
size (Cohen, 1988, labeled w2 = .01 as a "small" effect)].
Graphical Analysis
Figures 2 and 3 depict alternative ways of looking at the data
concerning some of the parameters. Both of these figures reprise
the data contained in Figure 1, but they represent them in different
ways, emphasizing different aspects of our data. Figure 2 depicts
two phase portraits, one for each age group. A phase portrait is a
graph depicting change in a system over time; the system is
depicted in an n-dimensional space (called state space) and is
defined by n descriptive variables. Here, we show a two-
dimensional plot relating the rate of approach parameter to asymp-
totic performance. As can be seen in the graph, the two phase
653
portraits are remarkably similar. At first, a sizeable increase occurs
in the asymptotic parameter because of instruction in the method
of loci, while at the same time the rate of approach goes up
(meaning that the research participants are getting slower at exe-
rise in asymptotic performance is reached, the curve drops almost
vertically, meaning that the asymptote stays constant while the rate
age groups, showing a high qualitative resemblance of the effects
gram also illustrates two important differences between the age
point depicting performance at pretest) is different; and second,
that older adults need one session more to reach their peak of
asymptotic performance. The similarity in shape combined with a
different starting point Leads to the nonconvergence of age differ-
ences in the course of memory training.
Figure 3 depicts the change over testing occasions of the young-
old difference in the rate parameter in a Brinley plot. In such a plot
(Brinley, 1965), average data of older adults are depicted as a
function of average data of young adults. The difference between
a traditional Brinley plot and Figure 3 is that Figure 3 contains an
ordered sequence of points obtained on the same participants. The
curve describing the change over time of the rate parameter seems
to curl back onto itself. This suggests that, after the initial shock of
applying the new mnemonic, participants return to their initial
speed of encoding processes (and thus to the same initial age
difference). This in turn suggests that the speed at which encoding
processes are executed may well be a given within the cognitive
system, that is independent of the algorithm used, at least after a
sufficient amount of practice with the algorithm has been provided.
In that sense, the basic speed of processing of the system works as
a point attractor (e.g., Kelso, 1995), that is, after destabilization,
the system returns to its initial settings, much as a spring that is
4
r
CO
< 12
1
I °
g 6
a 4 H
"o
2
a
(0
rr n J
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
. Rate of Approach (Younger Adults)
Figure 3. Phase portrait in young-old space of the change over training
in the method of loci of the rate-of-approach parameter for the time-
accuracy functions. The arrow indicates the direction of time; successive
sessions are connected with lines.
654 VERHAEGHEN AND KLIEGL
stretched and then released will eventually return to its initial
Discussion
In this study, older and younger adults were trained in the
method of loci, and they received extensive practice with the
method over a period of many months. The results were analyzed
at the level of parameters of the time-accuracy function, that is, the
function relating proportion of recall to the time each item has
been presented.
Our first goal was to assess the effects of training and practice
in the method of loci on the parameters of the time-accuracy
function. Training in an effective mnemonic, such as the method of
loci, entails learning a new algorithm for encoding the to-be-
remembered materials. As such, this intervention initially destabi-
lizes the system. This can be seen in the effects of training on the
parameters of the function: It slowed the participants down after
posttest (viz., the rate parameter is larger after training, and for the
older adults, the onset time increases as well), while at the same
time asymptotic performance is boosted. After this initial shock,
the main effect of continued practice is to speed up processing
(viz., the rate of approach goes down, and for the older adults, the
onset time decreases), while the asymptotic level of performance
remains relatively stable. Thus, two distinct mechanisms seem to
be at work in instruction and practice, which have their impact on
different aspects of time-related performance. The method of loci
provides participants with a framework that allows both for effi-
cient encoding of the individual words and for correct serial order
at recall. This effectively increases the maximum capacity of the
system for serial recall. However, this increase comes at the cost of
slowing down the encoding processes, as evidenced by an in-
creased rate of approach. Maybe the reason for this initial slowing
is that the assemblage of the components of a newly learned
algorithm is typically an effortful process, occurring under delib-
erate control (Duncan, 1986; Norman & Shallice, 1986). In the
method of loci, some compilation of various components is indeed
required: retrieving the locus, forming an image of the locus,
forming an image of the word, and combining these in an inter-
active fashion. After initial destabilization, the system speeds up
again. Likely candidates for this speed-up include faster execution
of the compilation process itself, increased automaticity in the
execution of one or more of the components, maybe allowing for
parallel processing, or the acquisition of a library of stock images
(or of stock solutions for finding an interactive image) that can be
applied at particular loci. Note that this double effect of increased
asymptotic performance and first elevated and then decreasing rate
of approach makes for a deceptively smooth learning curve at the
level of mean performance, in that the abrupt change in asymptotic
performance is masked by the abrupt task-related slowing that
occurs.
An interesting finding is that the onset time increases for older
adults (but not for younger adults) immediately after training (i.e.,
during the first and second posttest) and then decreases quite
steadily (at a rate of about 20 ms per session). Estimates of the
onset parameter should be interpreted cautiously, however. For
instance, we found that in the last few sessions, onset times were
effectively lower for older than for younger adults. This might
indicate a failure in precision of estimating the parameter, maybe
due to the fact that no data points were sampled close to the onset
time (minimum presentation time used for estimating the curves
was 3 s). Nevertheless, the pattern is compatible with the hypoth-
esis that after instruction in the method of loci participants not only
read the word but also retrieved the locus, which they need to
generate the mental image. The decrease of the onset time over the
course of practice, up to the initial pretest level, suggests that over
practice, retrieval of the locus becomes more and more automatic.
For young adults, this transition may have occurred during the
instruction sessions, which were sufficient to establish the skill at
a very high level. The reader should note that the finding that the
onset times for young and older adults do not differ at pretest is
consistent with all previous time-accuracy research on recall and
recognition of words from episodic memory (Verhaeghen, 1999;
Verhaeghen et al., 1998). This result suggests that the lexical
access process has an identical time course for younger and older
adults— a result consistent with lexical access time-course esti-
mates from spread-of-activation studies (for an overview, see
Duchek & Balota, 1993) and at least some of the data on reading
times (Wingfield & Stine-Morrow, 2000).
Our finding of a dramatic shift from an untrained to a trained
state, followed by a gradual relaxation of the system into a more
efficient way of executing the algorithm is in accordance with the
correlational analysis on the same data set reported in Baltes and
Kliegl (1992). This analysis showed that instruction disrupts the
rank order of participants, which then stayed quite consistent
during continued practice in both age groups. We suspect that the
maximum capacity of the system may well be a function of both
the learner and the task, therefore the transition from the individ-
ual's preferred strategy at pretest to the imposed strategy at post-
test may boost performance of certain individuals more than that of
others. This is convergent with some evidence gathered by Ver-
haeghen and Marcoen (1996). In that study, older adults who at
pretest indicated that they linked words in a list using some
associative technique had more trouble with applying the method
of loci correctly. Likewise, in that study, the ability to recall paired
associates, as measured with an independent test at pretest, had a
larger effect on posttest than on pretest performance. Thus, the
method of loci might be better suited to certain individuals than to
others, and this reorders participants. Once the method has been
learned, however, practice mostly has the effect of honing the
component skills, and there is no reason why this should disturb
the rank order of participants.
For the rate-of-approach parameter, significant age differences
were found in the practice portion of the learning curve. Conse-
quently, older adults are slower than young adults (at least during
the period of extended practice with the mnemonic). This is in
accordance with the bulk of the literature on aging and slowing
(e.g., Cerella, 1990; Salthouse, 1991, 1996) and with previous
time-accuracy research that examined age differences in recall
from episodic memory (Kliegl et al., 1998; Verhaeghen et al.,
1998). This result points at the existence of a limited-time mech-
anism (Salthouse, 1996) for encoding of information both when
individuals apply their usual encoding strategies and when the
method of loci is applied.
There was an age main effect in asymptotic performance, both
in the pretest-to-posttest contrast and in the practice portion of the
learning curve. Older adults are ultimately less accurate than
younger adults. Kliegl et al. (1998) and Verhaeghen et al. (1998)
 LEARNING A NEW ALGORITHM
have previously demonstrated such asymptotic age differences in
recall from episodic memory, and the current research extends this
finding to recall when both age groups are equated in their use of
a highly efficient strategy. Thus, this is strong evidence for the
robustness of an asymptotic age difference in recall from episodic
memory. This is not an obvious result. It signifies that even when
given an unlimited amount of time, and even after months of
practice, older adults do not reach the same level of recall as
younger adults when applying a mnemonic device that provides an
excellent and consistent cueing device at both encoding and re-
trieval. Stated in Salthouse's (1996) terms, this implies that a
simple limited-time mechanism of slowing is insufficient to ex-
plain adult age differences in recall from episodic memory. Of
course, in the present experiment no special instructions occurred
after the initial instruction sessions. New practice regimes or
special coaching directed at increasing asymptotic levels late in the
experiment may lead to further shifts of the asymptote.
With regard to the change in age differences over training and
practice, no Age X Testing Occasion interaction was found for
either the rate of approach or the asymptote. Thus, within the limits
of the statistical power of this analysis, the effects of instruction
and practice on these parameters were identical for younger and
older adults. The phase portrait depicted in Figure 2 offers a vivid
description of this similarity: The change over time of the system
described by the rate of approach and the asymptote is indeed
remarkably similar in younger and older adults, as illustrated by
the parallemess of the traces. This suggests a strong qualitative
resemblance in the processes underlying performance changes as a
function of instruction and practice in younger and older adults.
(But note that older adults reach the peak in the graph only at the
second testing occasion, showing that although the system de-
scribed by the rate and asymptotic parameters is indeed similar in
older and younger adults, the older system moves slower through
state space.)
There is a third, and quite exciting, illustration of the young-old
parallelism. The trace of the rate parameter in Brinley space as
depicted in Figure 3 reveals that, at least at the group level, the
original age difference acts as an attractor state. In other words,
over the course of training and practice, the rate of approach
returns to its original setting (and hence to its original age differ-
ence), much as a spring returns to its original shape after contrac-
tion or expansion. This finding suggests that the speed of elabo-
ration of encoding into episodic memory, after a strategy has
become automatic, might well be a constant that is intraindividu-
ally stable.
Summarized, it appears that the instruction in the method of loci
has its primary effect in a lasting increase of the asymptotic level
of recall and in temporary slowing of elaboration processes. In
older adults, we observed the additional effect of increasing the
minimum time needed for minimal recall. Older adults were found
to be slower than younger adults and to have a lower level of
asymptotic recall. These differences were largely preserved over
training and practice after an initial warming-up period for older
adults.
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Received July 21, 1998
Revision received March 27, 2000
Accepted March 28, 2000 •