The time course of encoding specific and gist episodic memory representations among young and older adults.

How rapidly can we encode the specifics versus the gist of episodic memories? Competing theories have opposing answers, but empirical tests are based primarily on tasks of item memory. Few studies have addressed this question with tasks measuring the binding of event components (e.g., a person and a location), which forms the core of episodic memory. None of these prior studies included older adults, whose episodic memories are less specific in nature. We addressed this critical gap by presenting face-scene pairs (e.g., an old man with a park) at various encoding presentation rates to 80 young (