Young and old adult subject performance on pictorial priming and different feature types using the visually degraded stimuli task

Date

1989-12

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

A visually degraded stimuli task (Vokey, Baker, Hayman, & Jacoby, 1986) was used to test ifferences that might exist between two age groups, gender, three picture priming conditions and two picture feature types in the ability to identify pictures. The test is a pictorial priming task that presents primes in the form of whole pictures and target items in the form of degraded pictures. The priming conditions consisted of identical, similar, and no prime. Pictures consisted of either contour or internal detail. Young subjects were 18 males and 18 females ages 17-26 yrs. (x=20.58, sd=2.41). Older subjects were 18 males and 18 females, ages 60-80 yrs. (x=68.42, sd=5.26). The Shipley Institute of Living Scale (Shipley, 1953) and the Self Evaluation of Life Function Scale (Linn & Linn, 1984) were also administered. Mean keystrokes to identification of a picture and time to solution were the dependent variables. Keystrokes were the number of times that the subject depressed the space bar. Each depression of the space bar resulted in seven pixels appearing on the computer screen. Main effects were observed for age group, feature type, and prime type for both of the dependent variables.

Description

Keywords

Picture perception, Priming, Memory

Citation