Tomatoes and apples or red and green lines: are age-related interference effects based on competition among concepts or percepts?
Using a negative priming paradigm, the authors tested whether age-related interference effects are due to age differences in perceptual distractibility or in resolving conceptual competition. In samples of 40 younger adults (aged 22-34) and 40 older adults (aged 58-76), the authors found a greater reduction in processing speed for older than for younger adults in trials in which targets were superimposed with distracting objects as compared to single-target trials. When trials were paralleled for perceptual features, that is, when single-target trials were supplemented with nonsense distractors, the age effect became nonsignificant. The results suggest that age-related interference effects are primarily due to age differences in perceptual distractibility.
Titz
Cora
C
German Institute for International Educational Research, DIPF, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Behrendt
Jorg
J
Hasselhorn
Marcus
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult