Word frequency effects in priming performance in young and older adults.
The present study examined word frequency effects on implicit priming in older adults compared with younger adults. In Experiment 1 participants performed a spelling test consisting of primed and unprimed homophones (e.g., mourning) and nonhomophones (e.g., militant). Older adults spelled more unprimed, low-frequency homophones than did younger adults, suggesting that there are age-related differences in base-rate spelling of lower frequency homophones. Experiment 2 involved a word-fragment completion task that primed both high- and low-frequency words. Young adults showed larger priming effects for low-frequency words, whereas older adults showed smaller and similar priming effects for high- and low-frequency words. Experiment 3 replicated the finding that word frequency has no effect on priming performance in older adults on a word-fragment completion task. These studies found differential word frequency effects on priming performance between young and older adults.
Gomez
Rowena
R
Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. rggomez@artsci.wustl.edu
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis