title: A diffusion model analysis of the effects of aging in the lexical-decision task.
abstract: The effects of aging on response time (RT) are examined in 2 lexical-decision experiments with young and older subjects (age 60-75). The results show that the older subjects were slower than the young subjects, but more accurate. R. Ratcliff s (1978) diffusion model provided a good account of RTs, their distributions, and response accuracy. The fits show an 80-100-ms slowing of the nondecision components of RT for older subjects relative to young subjects and more conservative decision criterion settings for older subjects than for young subjects. The rates of accumulation of evidence were not significantly different for older compared with young subjects (less than 2% and 5% higher for older subjects relative to young subjects in the 2 experiments).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ratcliff
authors.forename: Anjali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thapar
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McKoon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary