The protective effect of educational level varies as a function of the difficulty of the memory task in ageing

This study aimed to explore the effects of age and educational level on recall performance and organisational strategies used during recall as a function of the level of memory task difficulty. Younger (n = 55, age range = 20–39 years) and older (n = 45, age range = 65–75 years) adults learned a word list where the words were either already semantically grouped (easier) or presented in pseudo-random order (harder), and then recalled the words. The number of words recalled was calculated, and an index of clustering was computed to assess organisational strategies. Older adults recalled less words than the younger ones. Older adults with a higher educational level recalled more words than their counterparts with a lower educational level when the memory task was easier, but they all performed similarly on the harder memory task. Moreover, we noted a strong positive association between educational level and semantic organisation in older adults when the memory task was easier. Regardless of educational level, older adults used semantic organisation as much as younger adults when the memory task was easier. However, when the memory task was harder, older adults showed significantly less organisational strategies than younger adults, the latter using semantic organisation to boost their recall performance. In sum, the protective effect of educational level seems to be restricted on recall performance, but not organisational strategies, in easy memory tasks providing sufficient external information about the most efficient mnemonic strategy to use. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10433-022-00724-z.