Do serial order working memory abilities decline in healthy aging?

The preservation of the ability to maintain information over the short-term in healthy aging remains a controversial question. We assessed verbal working memory abilities in 30 young and 30 older adults by focusing directly on the maintenance of serial order information, an aspect rarely considered in previous studies. Participants heard and repeated in correct serial order word or nonword sequences of increasing list length. Bayesian statistics showed moderate evidence for an absence of group effect on item recall performance (BF01 = 3,25 for words, BF01 = 1,26 for nonwords). When focusing directly on serial order recall performance, we observed anecdotal evidence in favor of a group effect (BF10 = 2,9 for words; BF10 = 0,5 for nonwords). These results suggest that if there is any reduction of verbal WM abilities in healthy aging, it is very small and may be limited to the maintenance of serial order information.