Study suggests the ability to use implicit memory is reduced with age Younger adults can use a different kind of visual memory, called perceptual implicit memory, to give them a "boost" when trying to recall events Brain scans found age did not affect the amount of information taken in However colourful your past, it seems that memories really do fade to black and white. Scientists believe that the ability to remember in colour fades with age - which effectively means our memories start to resemble the sepia-tinted photos at the start of many family albums. The American team came to this conclusion after carrying out an experiment to measure how accurately participants were able to recall the colour of a series of dots. The ability to remember colour fades with age, according to a new study carried out by American scientists Comparing the performance of a group people in their 60s to a group in their 20s, his team found that the younger group were better at matching dots of the same colour. Dr Philip Ko, a researcher at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said the study found that younger people store their memories in "high definition," an ability which is reduced with age. The study, published in the journal Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, involved presenting each participant with two, three or four coloured dots on a computer screen. The dots disappeared, and then after a few seconds a single dot appeared - either in the same colour as one of the previous dots or in a completely new colour. The participants were asked whether they had seen the colour before. "We instructed participants to strive for accuracy but not speed," the report said. The younger group, 13 people with an average age of 23, did better than the older group, 11 people with an average age of 67. Brain scans taken during the tests found that age did not affect the information taken in when the dots were shown. The older group were able to store the memories but were not able to retrieve them as well, even over a short timeframe. The researchers think younger adults may be able to use a different kind of visual memory, called perceptual implicit memory, to give them a "boost" when trying to retrieve the information. Their ability to use this implicit memory may be reduced with age, they think. Dr Ko said: "We don't know why older adults perform poorly when their neural activity suggests their memory capacity is intact, but we have two leads. First, further analysis of this current dataset and other studies from our laboratory suggest that older adults retrieve memories differently than younger adults. "Second, there is emerging evidence from other labs suggesting that the quality of older adults" memories is poorer than younger adults. "In other words, while older adults might store the same number of items, their memory of each item is "fuzzier" than that of younger adults." Researchers think younger adults may be able to use a different kind of visual memory, called perceptual implicit memory. They believe this gives them a "boost" when trying to retrieve the information. Earlier research suggests that older adults retrieve memories differently than younger adults. "In other words, while older adults might store the same number of items, their memory of each item is "fuzzier" than that of younger adults,' said Dr Philip Ko. The study involved presenting each participant with two, three or four coloured dots on a computer screen