AGING, OPTIMAL TESTING TIMES, AND NEGATIVE PRIMING

The effects of time-of-day preferences an selective attention were tes ted in 2 experiments after normative work with 975 younger adults and 143 older adults verified C. P. May, L. Hasher, and E. R. Stoltzfus's (1993) finding that most older adults prefer the morning, whereas youn ger adults prefer activities later in the day. In Experiment 1, the co gnitive effects of testing at preferred or nonpreferred times of day w ere examined in negative priming and related paradigms because (a) old er adults typically have not shown negative priming and (b) previous r esearch has not taken preference and testing times into account. In co ntrast to those tested at nonpreferred times, both younger and older g roups tested at their preferred times showed negative priming. Age or testing optimality also affected other priming tasks. The central resu lts were replicated in Experiment 2, which tested younger and older ad ults at their preferred times of the middle of the day.