Active Control of Learning Enhances Memory Across the Lifespan

This article investigates the effects of active control of the study materials on recognition and spatial memory, tracing for the first time its cross-sectional lifespan trajectory from ages 5 to 69. We analyzed one set of published data, reporting results from children aged 5 to 10 years (n = 99; Ruggeri et al., 2019), together with three new, unpublished sets of data collected from adolescents (14–17 years; n = 43), younger (22–30 years; n = 26) and older adults (61–69 years; n = 27), all using the same experimental paradigm. Our results indicate a strong robustness of the active learning advantage, which emerges at age 5, reaches an adult-like magnitude by age 8, and remains stable throughout the lifespan. Furthermore, our analyses reveal that spatial and recognition memory are influenced by study patterns, in particular, the systematicity of the study pattern, and that this relationship is also robust across age groups, despite striking developmental differences in how participants strategically approach active study. We consider potential interpretations and implications for the lifespan robustness of the findings, and outline promising future directions for theoretical and applied research, highlighting the need for more thorough analyses of the individual, environmental, and situational factors that mediate and drive the advantage for active learning.