ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the age differences in the basis of responding using two different paradigms. First, it discusses the paired associate procedure that required participants to learn semantically related pairs of words. At test, participants listened to the cue word presented in the clear and then were asked to identify a second word masked by 6-talker babble. For congruent trials, the word in noise was the same as the trained target. For incongruent trials, the word in noise was a phonological neighbor that formed a minimal pair with the trained target. For baseline trials, the word in noise was unrelated to the training target. Second, it describes the sentences to provide semantically congruent and incongruent contexts, with anomalous sentences serving as a baseline condition. The chapter explains that the older adults use semantic context as a basis for responding more so than do young listeners.
