INTERINDIVIDUAL AND INTRAINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SEMANTIC PRIMING AMONG YOUNG AND OLDER ADULTS

The influences of inter- and intra-individual differences on context e ffects for young and older adults were examined. Results of a semantic priming task revealed two subsets of older adults who were markedly d ifferent in terms of response latency, consistency of responding, and magnitude of priming. Examination of individual response distributions indicated that (a) age differences in priming were localized to trial s representing subjects' slowest responses and were eliminated for the ir fastest responses and (b) inconsistently responding older individua ls contributed disproportionately to age differences in priming. The r esults are interpreted in terms of an interactive-compensatory model i n which the ability to sustain attention is related to both priming an d word recognition. It is concluded that the failure to examine indivi dual differences may be contributing to the discrepant results in the literature.