Visual word recognition in young and older adults: A study of cohort effects for lexical variables

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to determine whether lexical variables corresponding to the lexicons of young and older adults are better predictors of visual word recognition latencies than lexical variables that are not specifically adapted to the populations. Three variables were considered (subjective frequency, age of acquisition, objective frequency). Subjective frequency and age of acquisition ratings were provided by the young and older adults of the experiment, while four objective frequency measures were collected in four norms for the French language based on texts dating from different periods. As a whole, 220 words were presented to 45 young adults and 40 older adults in a lexical decision task. Regression analyses showed that objective frequency, subjective frequency, and age of acquisition were better predictors of the lexical decision latencies of young and older adults when they were accorded with the lexicons of the populations.