Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful newly-constructed tests. The older groups were predicted to perform better on the new forms. No test effects were expected for the youngest group. Age differences were found on all tests, with better performance by the younger groups. For both space and reasoning, the obtained test/age interactions were counter to those expected. All age groups performed better on the new spatial test. No test effects were found for reasoning. Findings suggest that the link between stimulus meaningfulness and intellectual performance is complex, and that the challenge of constructing tests representative of everyday reasoning and spatial behavior still exists. (Author/JAC)