Age and forgetfulness: the effect of implicit priming.
Participants (i.e., perceivers) unscrambled either memory-related phrases (experimental group) or memory-neutral phrases (control group). Then perceivers read a vignette about a forgetful young, middle-aged, or old target person, after which they rated (a) the target's forgetfulness and (b) how difficult each of 12 tasks (4 low, 4 medium, and 4 high in memory load) would be for the target. High-memory-load tasks were rated as more difficult by perceivers in the experimental group than by perceivers in the control group. Thus, implicit priming of a forgetfulness schema resulted in harsher judgments about how difficult high-memory-load tasks would be for forgetful targets. However, this priming effect was no stronger for old than for young or middle-aged targets.
Erber
J T
JT
Florida International University, Department of Psychology, Miami 33199, USA.
Caiola
M A
MA
Williams
M
M
Prager
I G
IG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis