Adult age comparisons in the processing of event frequency information.

Abstract

The usual superiority in frequency-of-occurrence judgments of younger vs. older subjects was hypothesized to result from greater strategic encoding of the materials conveying frequency information. A subject-paced, visual search task was designed to control nontarget word encoding. Relative frequency judgments for the nontarget word pairs were equally accurate for younger and older subjects, and performance of both groups was above chance. Results suggest that strategic cover-task encoding can induce age differences in incidental frequency processing. Consistent with a nonoptimal as opposed to an optimal view, automatic processes require only minimal capacity for above-chance performance, but additional strategic resources can increase performance. When such additional resources are used more by younger than by older subjects, the former are better in frequency performance.

Developmental Patterns of Free Recall and Frequency Judgement in Korean and American Students

“…rather than "how many times did a word occur?"). It is possible that the previously obtained grade differences re ected developm ental differences in the ability to make the relatively dif cult absolute judgements of frequency (Sanders et al, 1990). Students in this experiment, along with those from Experiment 3, provided retrospective reports on their judgements and those results are presented here.…”

“…Frequency judgem ents are supposed to be age-invariant because automatic processes require minimal resource allocation and are not in uenced by circumstance. However, the existing evidence concerning age-invarianc e of frequency and related processes such as temporal order is mixed, with some studies reporting no development al differences and others reporting developm ental differences (for reviews, see Naveh-Benjamin, 1990;Sanders, Wise, Liddle, & Murphy, 1990). Among children, for exam ple, Hasher and Zacks (1979) found no age differences between grades for children in kindergarten and grades 1, 2, and 3.…”

“…Among adults, Hasher and Zacks (1979) found no age differences whereas Kausler, Lichty, and Freund (1985) found younger adults' judgem ents to be more accurate than those of older adults. Sanders et al (1990) attribute many of the con icting age difference ndings to differences in retrieval demands of the task (e.g. absolute judgem ents or relative judgements) or instructions (e.g.…”

Adult age differences in frequency estimations of happy and angry faces

“…One possible explanation of this negativity effect is the automaticity of frequency estimations, at least during the encoding process (Hasher & Zacks, 1984;Sanders et al, 1990;Wiggs et al, 1994). Mather and Knight (2005) demonstrated that automatic encoding processes do not show a positivity effect in older adulthood but instead a negativity effect.…”

“…However, the empirical evidence on age invariance in frequency estimates is mixed. Although there exist studies supporting the age invariance of frequency-ofoccurrence judgments (Attig & Hasher, 1980;Hasher & Zacks, 1979;Kausler & Puckett, 1980;Sanders, Wise, Liddle, & Murphy, 1990), others suggest that older adults perform poorer on frequency judgments than younger adults (Di Pellegrino, Nichelli, & Faglioni, 1988;Freund & Witte, 1986;Kausler, Salthouse, & Saults, 1987;Mutter & Goedert, 1997;Wiggs et al, 1994).…”