The poorer performance of older people in laboratory tests of episodic memory may result from failures or deficiencies in metamemory processes, e.g., failure to monitor task or individual item difficulty. To study age differences in prediction of memory performance, an associative matching task was used to compare young (N=20) and older (N=20) adults' memory for a list of 60 unrelated paired associates. Metamemory measures, and prediction and response evaluation were also taken. A substantial age effect was found in memory performance. Young adults were correct on 50% of the pairs in associative matching, while older adults were correct on only 30%. The two age groups did not show any substantial difference in the accuracy of the predictive measure. Older adults underestimated task difficulty, however, showing a substantial overestimate of the number of correct associative matches they would make. Younger adults, on average, used the predictive scale accurately but were only slightly more accurate on the response evaluation measure. (Author/JAC)