Among the goals of this project is to describe adult age differences and changes in nonverbal memory performance. Estimates of age change based on regression analyses of 24 years of first-time scores on the Benton Visual Retention Test for men were calculated for ten birth cohorts. The largest estimates of age change were found for the two earliest born cohorts (1877-1884 and 1885-1892), moderate estimates of change for the next four cohorts (born between 1893 and 1924) and virtually no change for the four latest born cohorts. These results are consistent with individual measures of change obtained longitudinally; substantial change in nonverbal memory occurs only late in life. Similar regression analyses were used to compare estimates of age change in eight pairs of birth cohorts over the same period of life. The pairs of estimates of age change in nonverbal memory were quite similar in magnitude and were highly correlated.
