Differential age effects for case and hue mixing in visual word recognition.
The authors compare older adults' lexical-decision data with younger adults' data reported in P. Allen, A. F. Smith, et al. (2002). On the basis of their work, it was proposed that consistent-case wordswould be processed by the faster holistic (magnodominated) stream, but that mixed-case words would be processed by the slower analytic (interblob-dominated or blob-dominated) steams. Hue mixing was predicted to have no effect on consistent-case performance, but mixed-hue/mixed-case words were predicted to be recognized faster than monochrome/mixed-case words. Younger adults showed the predicted results, but older adults did not. These results suggest that holistic central processes are maintained, but that older adults exhibited an analytic decrement
Allen
Philip A
PA
Department of Psychology, The University of Akron, Ohio 44325-4301, USA. paallen@uakron.edu
Smith
Albert F
AF
Groth
Karen E
KE
Pickle
Jody L
JL
Grabbe
Jeremy W
JW
Madden
David J
DJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003116:Color; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D021641:Recognition, Psychology