Auditory lexical decisions in children and adults: an examination of response factors

This study examined the influence of nonlexical response factors on the speed of auditory lexical decisions in children and adults. Two groups of children (6- and 7-year-olds, 8- and 9-year-olds) and adults participated in three tasks: a real-word lexical decision task in which subjects were asked to say "yes" as quickly as possible to real words; a nonword lexical decision task in which subjects were asked to say "no" as quickly as possible to nonwords; and an auditory-vocal reaction time task in which subjects were asked to say "yes" or "no" to a tone. Response times on all tasks decreased with age. However, the age-related differences on the real-word lexical decision task disappeared when differences in auditory-vocal reaction times were taken into account. This result suggests that a large part of developmental differences in the speed of lexical processing may be due to nonlexical response factors.