Lexical access and age

Lexical access, the time required to recover the meaning of a word, was measured in 12 young (mean age 24 yrs) and 12 old (mean age 73 yrs) Ss. Access time was unaffected by age, and a word-naming task. The facilitative effect of semantic associations between words was also comparable in young and old Ss. These results were obtained both under normal viewing conditions and under degraded conditions with overall latencies considerably increased. Findings indicate that aging does not affect either the encoding of the stimulus or access to the associated lexical entry, both directly and indirectly via contextual cues. This sparing of linguistic function is considered to underlie the preservation of verbal intelligence with age. (52 ref)