Effects of age and study repetition on plurality discrimination.
Previous studies have shown that false recognition decreases with study repetition for young but not for older adults, suggesting a deficit in recollection but not familiarity in old age. It is unclear, however, precisely how false recognition changes over a series of presentation frequencies for young and older adults. The present study examined this issue using a plurality discrimination task in which young, young-old, and old-old adults studied singular and plural nouns 1, 2, 4, and 8 times. False alarms to plurality-reversed lures increased with repetition for all age groups, and then declined at higher repetitions for young and young-old but not for old-old adults. Recollection deficit thus occurred at a more advanced age than researchers had previously envisioned. Further, reducing recollection demand eliminated age-related differences in plurality discrimination.
Chung
Christie
C
Mills College Psychology Department, Oakland, CA 94613, USA. cchung@mills.edu
Light
Leah L
LL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult