Journal
PSYCHOLOGY AND AGING
Volume 21, Issue 2, Pages 353-371Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0882-7974.21.2.353
Keywords
aging; reaction time; practice; perceptual learning
Categories
Funding
- NIA NIH HHS [R01 AG017083-06A1, R01-AG17083, R01 AG017083-05, R01 AG017083, R01 AG017083-04] Funding Source: Medline
- NIDCD NIH HHS [R01 DC001240, R01-DC01240] Funding Source: Medline
- NIMH NIH HHS [K05-MH01891, K05 MH001891-05, R37-MH44640, R37 MH044640-16, K05 MH001891-04, K05 MH001891, R37 MH044640-14, R37 MH044640-15, R37 MH044640, R37 MH044640-17, K05 MH001891-03] Funding Source: Medline
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Practice effects were examined in a masked letter discrimination task and a masked brightness discrimination task for college-age and 60- to 75-year-old subjects. The diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) was fit to the response time and accuracy data and used to extract estimates of components of processing from the data. Relative to young subjects, the older subjects began the experiments with slower and less accurate performance; however, across sessions their accuracy improved because the quality of the information on which their decisions were based improved, and this, along with reduced decision criteria, led to shorter response times. For the brightness, but not the letter, discrimination task, the older subjects' performance matched that of the younger group by the end of 4 sessions, except that their nondecision components of processing were slightly slower. These analyses illustrate how a well-specified model can provide a unified view of multiple aspects of data that are often interpreted separately.
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