Howard D V
Exp Aging Res. 1983 Fall;9(3):145-51. doi: 10.1080/03610738308258443.
Adults completed a lexical decision task in which they saw two strings of letters on each trial and were asked to respond "yes" only if both strings were words. Later, participants were tested for incidental free recall and incidental forced-choice recognition of the words presented in the lexical decision task. These tasks were given to 20 young (mean age = 31.1 years) and 20 old (mean age = 69.5 years) non-student adults in Experiment 1, and to 20 young college students in Experiment 2. In both experiments, semantic priming occurred, i.e., lexical decisions were faster when the words within a pair were related than when they were not. For the college students in Experiment 2, but not for the non-students in Experiment 1, this effect was greater for high-dominance pairs (e.g., BIRD-ROBIN) than for low (e.g., BIRD-DUCK). Experiment 1 revealed no age differences in priming, but significant age differences favoring the young in both free recall and recognition. The results are interpreted in light of theories that distinquish between automatic and effortful activation of semantic memory.
成年人完成了一项词汇判断任务，在每次试验中他们会看到两个字母串，并且被要求只有当两个字符串都是单词时才回答“是”。后来，参与者接受了对词汇判断任务中呈现的单词的偶然自由回忆和偶然强制选择再认测试。在实验1中，这些任务被分配给20名年轻的（平均年龄 = 31.1岁）和20名年长的（平均年龄 = 69.5岁）非学生成年人，在实验2中则分配给20名年轻的大学生。在两个实验中，都出现了语义启动效应，即当一对单词中的单词相关时，词汇判断比它们不相关时更快。对于实验2中的大学生，而不是实验1中的非学生，这种效应在高优势对（例如，BIRD-ROBIN）中比在低优势对（例如，BIRD-DUCK）中更大。实验1显示在启动方面没有年龄差异，但在自由回忆和再认方面存在显著的年龄差异，有利于年轻人。根据区分语义记忆的自动激活和努力激活的理论对结果进行了解释。
