title: Identity and location priming effects and their temporal stability in young and older adults.
abstract: Unlike previous studies, the present experiment was designed to directly compare negative (NP) and positive priming (PP) in 37 young (mean age: 21.5 years) and 37 older adults (mean age: 69.4 years) by means of two independent identity- and location-based priming tasks. While identity PP was shown to be reduced in older adults, no age-related differences were found for location PP. This pattern of results supports the notion that mechanisms involved in identity- and location-based PP are largely independent of each other. Both age groups exhibited reliable identity and location NP although location NP was decreased in older adults. Extremely low temporal test-retest coefficients indicated that mechanisms underlying identity and location NP represent situational states rather than stable traits. This lack of temporal stability may also account for highly ambiguous results obtained in previous studies.
authors.affiliation: Georg Elias Müller Institute for Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. stroche@uni-goettingen.de
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Troche
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gibbons
authors.forename: T H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Rammsayer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult