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Word Frequency Effects in Priming Performance in Young and Older Adults

^a Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

Rowena Gomez, Department of Psychology, Box 1125, Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130 E-mail: rggomez{at}artsci.wustl.edu.

Decision Editor: Toni C. Antonucci, PhD

The present study examined word frequency effects on implicit priming in older adults compared with younger adults. In Experiment 1 participants performed a spelling test consisting of primed and unprimed homophones (e.g., mourning) and nonhomophones (e.g., militant). Older adults spelled more unprimed, low-frequency homophones than did younger adults, suggesting that there are age-related differences in base-rate spelling of lower frequency homophones. Experiment 2 involved a word-fragment completion task that primed both high- and low-frequency words. Young adults showed larger priming effects for low-frequency words, whereas older adults showed smaller and similar priming effects for high- and low-frequency words. Experiment 3 replicated the finding that word frequency has no effect on priming performance in older adults on a word-fragment completion task. These studies found differential word frequency effects on priming performance between young and older adults.