Lexical priming deficits as a function of age.

Abstract

The effects of age on implicit memory were assessed in elderly and young adults using 2 priming procedures. Subjects also completed the WAIS-R, 3 tests to assess frontal lobe function, and 2 recall and 2 recognition tests of explicit memory. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to the low-frequency member of a homophone pair in a test purported to assess general knowledge. Subsequently, subjects completed a spelling test that contained the previously presented homophones to assess priming. Young subjects demonstrated priming (p < .01). Elderly subjects demonstrated a high baseline that may have obscured priming. In Experiment 2, subjects from each decade of life from the 20s through the 80s were given a word-stem completion test of priming. All age conditions demonstrated an effect of priming (p < .01). However, subjects in their 70s and 80s demonstrated lower priming scores (p < .05). Elderly subjects were also impaired on immediate-and delayed-recall tests. These results suggest an age-related decline in both implicit and explicit memory.Many studies of memory in the elderly have concentrated on stages of memory or processing of information. The elderly are generally not impaired, or only slightly impaired, on tests of sensory memory, short-term memory, or remote memory compared with young subjects (see Poon, 1985, for review). However, long-term memory is usually found to be impaired when the elderly are given recall or recognition tests for materials such as word lists (Bruning, Holzbauer, & Kimberlin, 1975), passages of prose (Gordon & Clark. 1974), pictures (Smith & Winograd, 1978, or geometric figures (Riege & Inman, 1981). Explanations for this impairment have frequently been framed in terms of information-processing deficits such as encoding, storage, or retrieval and more recently in terms of a decline in the capacity for cognitive processing or a decrease in semantic elaboration (Craik, 1985;Poon, 1985;Salthouse, 1985Salthouse, , 1988.Recently, several studies of memory and aging have reported testing procedures that examined the theoretical distinction between the type of information stored and how this stored information is affected by aging (

Search and selection processes in implicit and explicit word-stem completion performance in young, middle-aged, and older adults

“…According to Winocur and his colleagues, older participants perform poorly on WSC because of inefficient search strategies that decrease the utility of a perceptual cue in defining a set of possible target items (Winocur et al, 1996). Supporting this hypothesis, Davis et al (1990) found that lower WSC priming in older adults was associated with poor performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a test of rule learning that requires strategy, flexibility, and inferential learning (see also Winocur et al, 1996).…”

“…At least five investigations using word-stem completion (WSC) have found decreased priming in older adults when compared with young adults (Chiarello & Hoyer, 1988;Davis et al, 1990;Hultsch, Masson, & Small, 1991;Schacter, Church, & Osowiecki, 1994, Experiment 1;Small, Hultsch, & Masson, 1995;Winocur, Moscovitch, & Stuss, 1996), although at least an equal number of studies have found no age-related differences in priming (Dick, Kean, & Sands, 1989;Java & Gardiner, 1991;Light & Singh, 1987;Park & Shaw, 1992;Schacter et al, 1994, Experiment 2). In contrast, reliable age differences in priming are consistently absent in word-fragment completion (Light, Singh, & Capps, 1986;Rybash, 1994;Winocur et al, 1996), lexical decision (Balota & Ferraro, 1996;Karayanidis, Andrews, Ward, & McConaghy, 1993), and word identification (Hashtroudi, Chrosniak, & Schwartz, 1991;Light & Kennison, 1996;Light, LaVoie, ValenciaLaver, Albertson-Owens, & Mead, 1992;Light & Singh, 1987; but see Abbenhuis, Raajmakers, Raajmakers, & Van Woerden, 1990).…”

Perceptual and lexical components of auditory repetition priming in young and older adults

“…Studies in which priming in healthy older adults has been examined have found either intact priming (Howard, Fry, & Brune, 1991;Java & Gardiner, 1991;Light, La Voie, Valencia-Laver, Albertson Owens, & Mead, 1992;Light & Singh, 1987;Mitchell,1989;Moscovitch,1982) or small age-related deficits (Chiarello & Hoyer, 1988;Davis et al, 1990;Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998;Hultsch, Masson, & Small, 1991;Schacter, Church, & Osowiecki, 1994), suggesting that this phenomenon, unlike deliberate retrieval, is largely immune to aging. Findings that overall repetition priming effects are relatively constant across age groups do not, however, unequivocally support the assumption that the processes that produce these effects are entirely age insensitive.…”

Noradrenergic modulation of cognitive function: clinical implications of anatomical, electrophysiological and behavioural studies in animal models

“…Humans display marked decrements in performance on PFCdependent tasks with ageing, similar to those observed in monkeys. For example, Davis et al (1990) observed age-related impairments in performance on the Stroop Interference and Wisconsin Card Sort tests, even at relatively early stages in the ageing process. Thus, the ability of a 2 -agonists to improve performance of PFC-dependent tasks in aged monkeys suggests the possibility that these drugs may be of benefit in the treatment of cognitive decline associated with ageing in humans.…”