Recent theories in cognitive psychology have emphasized the role of capacity requirements in encoding tasks. To examine the notion that age-related differences in the recall performance reflect differences in cognitive capacity, 80 adults (40 undergraduates, and 40 senior citizens) recalled newspaper advertisements under free recall and cued recall conditions. An analysis of the patterns of recall revealed quantitative but not qualitative differences among the subjects. Compared to older adults, young adults recalled more items and improved their performance across trials. Young adults also recalled more categories and more items per category than did older adults. However, in analyzing the pattern of recall no differences were found between the two age groups. Under the cued recall condition, younger adults recalled more items than did older adults. These findings suggest differences in cognitive capacity among these subjects. (Author/BL)