Age and rate of activation in semantic memory

Two word-primed picture-naming experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that rate of activation in semantic memory is slower for older adults than for young adults. The presence of priming effects, both positive and negative, was taken as evidence of activation. In Experiment 1 there was no age difference in the time of onset of either facilitation or inhibition by primes. A computer simulation, based on a simple connectionist model, showed that slower processing would have only a minimal effect on the time of onset of priming effects under the assumptions of the model; however, offset of inhibition by primes would be delayed if processing rate were reduced. In Experiment 2 older adults showed inhibition by primes over a longer interval than did young adults, which was taken as evidence that the general slowing associated with aging extends to the transmission of activation at the earliest levels of cognitive processing.