title: Characteristics for 200 words rated by young and older adults: age-dependent evaluations of German adjectives (AGE).
abstract: We describe the Age-Dependent Evaluations of German Adjectives (AGE). This database contains ratings for 200 German adjectives by young and older adults (general word-rating study) and graduate students (self-other relevance study). Words were rated on emotion-relevant (valence, arousal, and control) and memory-relevant (imagery) characteristics. In addition, adjectives were evaluated for self-relevance (Does this attribute describe you?), age relevance (Is this attribute typical for young or for older adults?), and self-other relevance (Is this attribute more relevant for the possessor or for other persons?). These ratings are included in the AGE database as a resource tool for experiments on word material. Our comparisons of young and older adults' evaluations revealed similarities but also significant mean-level differences for a large number of adjectives, especially on the valence dimension. This highlights the importance of age in the perception of emotional words. Data for all the words are archived at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.
authors.affiliation: University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. dgruehn@ncsu.edu
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grühn
authors.forename: Jacqui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013067:Speech Perception; D014825:Vocabulary