EFFECTS OF NORMAL AGING ON THE RECOGNITION OF GESTURES

Little is known about the effect of aging on the recognition of gestur es. The present study was designed to answer this question. Three grou ps of adults were assessed: (a) 30 subjects aged from 20 to 36 years; (b) 30 subjects aged from 40 to 55 years; (c) 54 subjects aged from 60 to 75 years. The protocol tested 5 tasks: (1) gesture decision; (2) r ecognition of correct gestures, (3) similarity judgment; (4) gesture d esignation; (5) gesture naming. Significant differences were found in tasks 3 and 5. These results were interpreted as difficulties located in the gesture lexicon or the semantic system.