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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Differences Between Young and Old University Students on a Lexical Decision Task: Evidence Through an Ex-Gaussian Approach

Ana Belen Navarro-pradosCarmen Moret-tatayDaniel GamermannEsperanza Navarro-pardo

subject

MaleUniversitiesDecision MakingNormal DistributionExperimental and Cognitive PsychologySemanticsTask (project management)Gender StudiesNormal distributionYoung AdultArts and Humanities (miscellaneous)Reaction TimeLexical decision taskHumansAttentionYoung adultStudentsAgedAnalysis of VarianceAge FactorsSemanticsEx gaussianWord lists by frequencyPsicologiaFemaleAnalysis of variancePsychologySocial psychologyCognitive psychology

description

This work compared two common variants of a lexical decision task (LDT) through two different analysis procedures: first, the classical ANOVA method, and second, by fitting the data to an ex-Gaussian distribution function. Two groups of participants (old and young university students) had to perform, blocks of go/no-go and yes/no tasks. Reaction times and error rates were much lower in the go/no-go task than in the yes/no task. Changes in the ex-Gaussian parameter related to attention were found with word frequency but not with the type of LDT tasks. These findings suggest that word frequency shows an attentional cost that is independent of age.

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2013-01-01The Journal of General Psychology
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2013.817964