Inter-individual performance differences in younger and older adults differentially relate to amplitude modulations and phase stability of oscillations controlling working memory contents

► We studied age and interindividual differences in EEG oscillations relevant for WM. ► Efficient WM encoding relates to enhanced recognition memory in YA and OA. ► Reduced amplitude modulation reveals impaired late selection in low-performing OA. ► Enhanced early phase stability benefits encoding in YA and high-performing OA.