Table 4.

Post-test Strategy Assessment

	Acquisition Condition
	Control task			Semantic orienting task
	Middle age (n = 24)	Older (n = 29)	Oldest Old (n = 24)	Middle-age (n = 24)	Older (n = 35)	Oldest Old (n = 24)
Question 1
General comments about task	3 (0.14)	9 (0.33)	10 (0.43)	8 (0.35)	12 (0.50)	15 (0.68)
General comments about memory	6 (0.27)	14 (0.52)	10 (0.43)	7 (0.30)	9 (0.38)	5 (0.23)
Insight and strategy	12 (0.54)	4 (0.15)	2 (0.09)	8 (0.35)	3 (0.13)	2 (0.09)
Off-topic comments	1 (0.05)	0 (0.00)	1 (0.04)	0 (0.00)	0 (0.00)	0 (0.00)
Total number of responses	22	27	23	23	24	22
Question 2
Insight and strategy - categories/association	14 (0.50)	16 (0.53)	1 (0.04)	14 (0.52)	17 (0.50)	7 (0.28)
Insight and strategy - other	11 (0.39)	7 (0.23)	11 (0.44)	7 (0.26)	11 (0.32)	9 (0.36)
Don’t know/no strategy	3 (0.11)	7 (0.23)	11 (0.44)	4 (0.15)	4 (0.12)	9 (0.36)
Miscellaneous	0 (0.00)	0 (0.00)	2 (0.08)	2 (0.07)	2 (0.06)	0 (0.00)
Total number of responses	28	30	25	27	34	25
Question 3
Yes/categories strategy	10 (0.38)	17 (0.50)	3 (0.13)	12 (0.46)	10 (0.30)	7 (0.26)
Yes/used other strategy	8 (0.31)	6 (0.18)	1 (0.04)	5 (0.19)	3 (0.09)	5 (0.19)
No/described category strategy	2 (0.08)	1 (0.03)	0 (0.00)	3 (0.12)	2 (0.06)	1 (0.04)
No/described other strategy	1 (0.04)	3 (0.09)	3 (0.13)	1 (0.04)	1 (0.03)	2 (0.07)
No reported strategy	5 (0.19)	7 (0.21)	17 (0.71)	5 (0.19)	17 (0.52)	12 (0.44)
Total number of responses	26	34	24	26	33	27

Notes. Entries are frequency counts with proportion scores in parentheses. Total number of participants is 160. Question 1 = Do you have any observations or comments about the memory tasks that you just completed? Question 2 = When I presented the words and pictures for study, how did you go about remembering them? Question 3 = Did you use a strategy to help you recall the words and pictures? If yes, please tell me what you did to help you recall the items.