It is unclear whether implicit memory (priming) is affected by aging. Some studies have reported no difference between young and older adults, while others have uncovered reliable reductions. An important factor that may explain these discrepancies is the manner of encoding. Processing requirements (perceptual/conceptual) have varied considerably between studies, yet processing abilities are not equally affected by aging. This study examined whether processing during encoding moderates age effects on priming. Young and older participants studied object-word pairs and made natural/manufactured (conceptual) and left/right rotation (perceptual) judgements in relation to the word or object. Objects served as targets on a subsequent continuous identification with recognition task to assess priming and recognition. Priming and recognition were greater in young than older adults for attended items, with a larger effect size in the conceptual than the perceptual condition. Findings suggest that age differences in priming may be a function of processing at encoding.

目前尚不清楚内隐记忆（启动）是否会受到衰老的影响。一些研究表明年轻人和老年人之间没有差异，而另一些研究则发现了可靠的减少。可能解释这些差异的一个重要因素是编码方式。不同研究之间的处理要求（感知/概念）差异很大，但处理能力并不受衰老的影响。这项研究检查了编码过程中的处理是否会缓和年龄对启动的影响。年轻和年长的参与者研究了物体-单词对，并对单词或物体做出自然/人造（概念）和左/右旋转（感知）判断。物体作为后续连续识别和识别任务的目标，以评估启动和识别。年轻人对参与项目的启动和认知比老年人更大，概念上的效应大小比感知条件上的效应大小更大。研究结果表明，启动的年龄差异可能是编码处理的函数。