The status of rapid response learning in aging

Strong evidence exists for an age-related impairment in associative processing under intentional encoding and retrieval conditions, but the status of incidental associative processing has been less clear. In 2 experiments, we examined the effects of age on rapid response learning-the incidentally le...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychology and aging Vol. 25; no. 4; p. 898
Main Authors Dew, Ilana T Z, Giovanello, Kelly S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.12.2010
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging - physiology
Aging - psychology
Association Learning - physiology
Cues
Humans
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Reaction Time
Task Performance and Analysis
Time Factors
Young Adult
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:Strong evidence exists for an age-related impairment in associative processing under intentional encoding and retrieval conditions, but the status of incidental associative processing has been less clear. In 2 experiments, we examined the effects of age on rapid response learning-the incidentally learned stimulus-response association that results in a reduction in priming when a learned response becomes inappropriate for a new task. Specifically, we tested whether priming was equivalently sensitive in both age groups to reversal of the task-specific decision cue. Experiment 1 showed that cue inversion reduced priming in both age groups with a speeded inside/outside classification task, and in Experiment 2, cue inversion eliminated priming on an associative version of this task. Thus, the ability to encode an association between a stimulus and its initial task-specific response appears to be preserved in aging. These findings provide an important example of a form of associative processing that is unimpaired in older adults.
ISSN:1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/a0019430