AGE AND FORGETFULNESS - THE EFFECT OF IMPLICIT PRIMING

Participants (i.e., perceivers) unscrambled either memory-related phra ses (experimental group) or memory-neutral phrases (control group). Th en perceivers read a vignette about a forgetful young, middle-aged, or old target person, after which they rated (a) the target's forgetfuln ess and (b) how difficult each of 12 tasks (4 low, 4 medium, and 4 hig h in memory lend) would be for the target. High-memory-load tasks were rated as more difficult by perceivers in the experimental group than by perceivers in the control group. Thus, implicit priming of a forget fulness schema resulted in harsher judgments about how difficult high- memory-load tasks would be for forgetful targets. However, this primin g effect was no stronger for old than for young or middle-aged targets .