Picture associations among old and young adults

Fifty college students (M age = 19.6 years) and 42 older adults (M age = 68.6 years) generated associations to drawings of common objects. Participants were given 90 s to generate as many associations as they could to each of 24 of the 48 drawings in the stimulus set. There was considerable agreement between the two age groups as to specific associations generated in response to individual drawings. However, older persons generated fewer associations per drawing than did younger persons, and there was some evidence that older persons were less consistent in their associations.