SHORT COMMUNICATION - REPRESENTATIONS OF SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AS FUNCTION OF AGE

In this study, we attempted to determine to what extent young and elde rly populations agreed in their representation of semantic categories. Ninety elderly (77 women, 13 men, mean age = 71.8 years) and 90 young (74 women, 16 men, mean age = 27.3 years) subjects wrote down the fir st four associations evoked by each of 30 semantic categories. Chi-squ are tests of association revealed that elderly and young subjects diff ered in their representation of most of the categories. As such, the n orms generated by our data may be useful in future research in cogniti ve growth and regression.