Exposure to more multiple-choice lures similarly affects older and younger adults' memory.

Abstract

Exposure to more alternatives in multiple-choice (MC) questions tends to harm new learning in younger adults (YAs; Roediger & Marsh, 2005). Cognitive aging theories make opposing predictions about whether MC tests would benefit or harm immediate and subsequent memory in older adults (OAs). Compared to YAs, OAs have more extensive knowledge bases, access to which could be disproportionately bolstered through activation of related knowledge or harmed due to difficulties inhibiting competition by increasing alternatives. Here, OAs and YAs answered age-normed general knowledge MC questions with two, four, or six alternatives. After 6 min or 1 week, participants completed a short-answer test with the same questions. For both age groups, accuracy decreased as lure number increased on the MC test. When participants answered correctly on the MC test, accuracy on the short-answer test 6 min later increased after exposure to more alternatives, but after initial errors, accuracy decreased with more alternatives. After a week, MC alternative number no longer impacted short-answer performance. Notably, the effects of alternative manipulations appear to be age-invariant and relatively short-lived in the context of general knowledge retrieval. Unlike in many other memory tasks, OAs performed largely the same as YAs. When the answer was accessible, OAs' later memory for general knowledge benefitted just as much as YAs' from seeing more alternatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).