Age of acquisition (AoA) refers to the age at which a person learns a word. Research has converged on the conclusion that early AoA words are processed more efficiently than late AoA words on a number of perceptual and reading tasks. However, only a few studies have investigated whether AoA affects memory on recognition, serial recall, and free recall tests, and the results are equivocal. We took advantage of the recent increase in the number of high-quality norms and databases to construct a pool of early and late AoA words that were equated on numerous other dimensions. There was a late AoA advantage in recognition using both pure (Experiment 1) and mixed (Experiment 2) lists, no effect of AoA on serial recall of either pure (Experiment 3) or mixed (Experiment 4) lists, and no effect of AoA on free recall of either pure (Experiment 5) or mixed lists (Experiment 6). We conclude that AoA does reliably affect memory on some memory tasks (recognition), but not others (serial recall, free recall), and that no current account of AoA can explain the findings.

习得年龄 (AoA) 是指一个人学习单词的年龄。研究得出的结论是，在许多感知和阅读任务中，早期 AoA 词的处理效率高于晚期 AoA 词。然而，只有少数研究调查了 AoA 是否影响识别、连续回忆和自由回忆测试的记忆，结果模棱两可。我们利用最近高质量规范和数据库数量的增加来构建一个早期和晚期 AoA 词库，这些词在许多其他维度上等同。使用纯（实验 1）和混合（实验 2）列表在识别方面具有晚期 AoA 优势，AoA 对纯（实验 3）或混合（实验 4）列表的连续回忆没有影响，并且 AoA 对纯列表（实验 5）或混合列表（实验 6）的自由回忆没有影响。我们得出结论，AoA 确实会可靠地影响某些记忆任务（识别）的记忆，但不会影响其他（连续回忆、自由回忆），并且目前没有关于 AoA 的解释可以解释这些发现。