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

A visually degraded stimuli task (Vokey, Baker, Hayman, and Jacoby, 1986) was used to test differences that might exist between two age groups, gender, 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. 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 and 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. Younger subjects were superior to older subjects in ability to use a prime. Performance solving contour pictures was superior to performance on internal detail pictures. Identical prime pictures required the fewest keystrokes and the least amount of time to solution. Similar prime pictures had the second fewest keystrokes and the second least amount of time to solution. No prime pictures required the most keystrokes and the longest time to solution. A Feature Type by Gender interaction was found for the number of keystrokes to solution. Males performed better than females on pictures with contour. Females performed better than males on pictures with internal detail. An Age Group by Prime Type interaction was found for time to solution. Older subjects took longer than younger subjects overall and took much longer in the no prime picture condition. These differences may be attributable to a decline in integrative thinking ability that increases with age.