The hypothesis that imagery use by the aged in learning concrete materials is suppressed under visual presentation conditions was investigated in a comparison of acquisition of sentences across three learning trials. Ten men and women in each of three age groups (21.4, 39.7, and 69.5 years) were given five abstract and five concrete sentences under either auditory or visual presentation. It was hypothesized that interference between perceptual and mediational processes would occur when both were dependent on the same store (visual or auditory), and that the oldest group would be most subject to this interference effect with concrete sentences. The results provided support for this hypothesis and led to the further suggestion that the effect of interference was mediated by practice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.