| Abstract: | Two experiments were conducted to examine evidence for the automatic processing of information about presentation modality in older adults. Young (mean age?=?22 years) and older adults (mean age?=?69 years) were asked to learn a mixed-modality (auditory and visual) list of nouns, then to recall the target words, and finally to identify the presentation modality of each word on a recognition list. Half of the participants in each study were told in advance to also remember modality information. The experiments differed in the number of judgments that had to be made about each word in the recognition list. Two of Hasher and Zacks' (1979) criteria for automatic processing (no effect of intentionality and minimal interference with other processes occurring at the same time) were satisfied. The minimal developmental change criterion, however, was not. Although the performance of both age groups was above chance, some decrement in modality memory occurred in the older adults. The results both support the notion of an automatic encoding process for modality information and raise questions about the adequacy of the age-invariance criterion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
