Age-related changes in the effects of target orientation on word recognition

Twenty-four undergraduates and 24 retired faculty participated in an experiment involving semantic priming of lexical decisions. Age-related differences in the use of semantic information during visual word recognition were examined at varying orientations of the target word. Four main results were found: (1) larger rotation effects for elderly adults; (2) larger priming effects for elderly adults; (3) larger priming effects with increasing Target Orientation; and (4) larger priming effects for the elderly adults as Target Orientation increased. Results are interpreted within an interactive-compensatory framework.