BEYOND FREQUENCY - PREDICTING AUDITORY WORD RECOGNITION IN NORMAL ELDERLY ADULTS

This study examined the contributions of several lexical variables to prediction of the variance in spoken word recognition performance in a sample of 29 normal older adults. Subjects responded to 50 experiment al stimulus words varying in frequency, age-of-acquisition, and famili arity, in a speeded auditory lexical decision task. The contributions of familiarity and age of acquisition were examined after accounting f or word frequency, the variable most often controlled in such studies. Strong age of acquisition effects were observed after accounting for frequency, whereas familiarity did not contribute to predicting lexica l decision reaction times. Clinical and research implications are disc ussed.