Older adults are more susceptible to gist-based false memories. According to Koutstaal et als’ (2003) semantic categorisation account this is because, in situations where both semantic and perceptual information is present i.e. conceptually related picture recognition, older adults tend to focus on the semantic information at the expense of the perceptual. It was unclear, however, whether this would apply to a situation, such as word lists, where the processing of precise perceptual information was less essential. False recognition rates for semantically and perceptually similar and perceptually similar only words were therefore compared. Analysis revealed no age interactions. This suggests that older adults, rather than demonstrating a generalised vulnerability to gist based false memories, are only disadvantaged when the processing of precise perceptual information is necessary. Limitations of the experiment are discussed.