A Diffusion Model Analysis of the Effects of Aging in the Lexical-Decision Task

The effects of aging on response time (RT) are examined in 2 lexical-decision experiments with young and older subjects (age 60-75). The results show that the older subjects were slower than the young subjects, but more accurate. R. Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model provided a good account of R...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2004-06, Vol.19 (2), p.278-289
Main Authors: Ratcliff, Roger, Thapar, Anjali, Gomez, Pablo, McKoon, Gail
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Differences
Age Factors
Aged
Aging
Aging - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Decision Making
Developmental psychology
Diffusion models
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Lexical Decision
Lexical decisions
Male
Middle Aged
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Reaction times
Response time
Verbal Behavior
Vocabulary
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Summary:The effects of aging on response time (RT) are examined in 2 lexical-decision experiments with young and older subjects (age 60-75). The results show that the older subjects were slower than the young subjects, but more accurate. R. Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model provided a good account of RTs, their distributions, and response accuracy. The fits show an 80-100-ms slowing of the nondecision components of RT for older subjects relative to young subjects and more conservative decision criterion settings for older subjects than for young subjects. The rates of accumulation of evidence were not significantly different for older compared with young subjects (less than 2% and 5% higher for older subjects relative to young subjects in the 2 experiments).
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.19.2.278