| Summary: | This study investigated the relationship between general intelligence and implicit memory performance in conjunction
with aging. Data have been collected from 95 volunteers (49 young-46 older adults). General intelligence was
measured by the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) test. Participants’ implicit memory performance was
measured by the Word Stem Completion (WSC) task, in which the participants were presented with first three letters
of a word and asked to complete this stem with the first word that comes to their mind. Explicit memory performance
was also measured to be able to make a comparison with implicit memory performance and to document the
differentiation between implicit and explicit memory. Although the same WSC task was used to measure implicit and
explicit memory performance separately, the different instructions were used to deduce the different memory types.
According to the results of factorial ANOVA, the main effect of age on general intelligence score was found to be
statistically significant. After running further analyses by Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, results
indicated that RSPM test total correct score had a tendency to decrease with increasing age and RSPM test completion
time had a tendency to increase with aging. Results also showed that implicit WSC task score and RSPM test total
correct score were positively correlated. Similarly, explicit WSC task score and RSPM test total correct score were
positively correlated, too. However, RSPM test completion time did not differ depending on implicit and explicit
memory performances which were measured by WSC task. The present study indicated the relation between implicit
WSC task and general intelligence. Within this context, this study is important to draw attention to the contribution of
implicit memory measurement which is in the shadow of traditional explicit memory measurements to general
intelligence, especially in older population.
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