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Aging and Inhibition of Unconsciously Processed Information: No Apparent Deficit
Author(s) -
Holley Patricia E.,
McEvoy Cathy L.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199606)10:3<241::aid-acp377>3.0.co;2-3
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , cued recall , recall , cued speech , cognition , task (project management) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , free recall , paleontology , management , economics , biology
Young and older adults were compared on a cued recall task designed to show effects of activation and inhibition of unconsciously processed information. The number of associates related to the target words by prior experience was varied, and the targets were studied either in the absence or the presence of meaningfully related context cues. The number of associates of the target had an effect on recall when context cues were absent during study, suggesting that the associates had been activated and encoded during study. In contrast, when context cues were present during study, no effect of the number of target associates was observed, suggesting that the associates had been inhibited during study. Comparable activation and inhibition effects were obtained for younger and older subjects. The results suggested little or no age‐related deficit in inhibition when the to‐be‐inhibited information was unconsciously processed and not brought to conscious awareness.