Comparative Study of the Semantic Word Associations Between Young and Elderly Adults

Authors

  • Maxciel Zortea Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • Jerusa Fumagalli de Salles Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Keywords:

Semantic association task, Cognitive development, Word association, Semantic memory

Abstract

The number of studies on word associations have increased recently. However, little agreement exists about age differences in relation to these associations. The semantic word associations of 108 adult college students (M = 22.17; SD = 6.04), and 57 elderly (M = 70.89; SD = 6.87) were compared using a semantic word association task. The strength between the stimuli and the strongest word associated were similar for both groups. The number of different words and the total amount of associated words were higher for the adults. Finally, the diversity index of responses was higher for the adults. Future research on memory and language can consider these age differences when developing tasks with verbal stimuli.

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Published

2012-10-01

How to Cite

Zortea, M., & Salles, J. F. de. (2012). Comparative Study of the Semantic Word Associations Between Young and Elderly Adults. Psicologia: Teoria E Pesquisa, 28(3), 259–266. Retrieved from https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/revistaptp/article/view/18159