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Background: While laboratory tests indicate that older adults typically perform more poorly than do younger adults on many types of memory tasks, the question arises as to whether, or to what extent, it is valid to attribute these differences to ageing per se or to some variable or class of variables that intervene between age and remembering. Objective: The purpose of this review is to present three current views that might explain the relationship between age and remembering. They can be construed as variants on resource theories and include: the processing speed hypothesis, the executive function hypothesis, and the common cause hypothesis. Methods: The review samples results pertinent to these hypotheses that derive from behavioural research. Studies involving various imaging techniques were considered beyond the scope of the review. Results: The balance of research strongly implicates …