Constituent priming effects: Evidence for preserved morphological processing in healthy old readers

How elderly adults process morphologically complex words is still a matter of controversy. The present study explored whether compound word recognition is affected by ageing. A group of young adults and a group of older healthy adults were tested on a lexical decision task. Compound words were presented primed by their first constituent (book-BOOKSHOP), their second constituent (shop-BOOKSHOP), or by an unrelated word (house-BOOKSHOP). Results revealed that morphological processing is fully preserved in advanced age and that the magnitude of the constituent priming effect was similar for young and older adults.