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Older adults show less interference from task-irrelevant social categories: evidence from the garner paradigm

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Abstract

Though age-related difference in most cognitive performance has been found, there was no previous research examining age difference in multiple social categorizations. Using faces as stimuli and Garner Selective Attention Paradigm, this study explored the different characteristics of implicit and explicit social categorization between young and older adults. The results showed that young perceivers explicitly categorized gender and age of the faces faster and more readily than older perceivers did. When young adults judged specific category (gender category in Experiment 1; age category in Experiment 2), they were interfered from the completing irrelative category; however, irrelative category could not capture older adults’ attention. These results first suggest perceivers’ age indeed plays an important role in multiple social categorizations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Pei Wang, Qin Zhang & Kai-Li Zhang

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  1. Pei Wang
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  2. Qin Zhang
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  3. Kai-Li Zhang
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Correspondence to Pei Wang.

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Handling editor: Maria Casagrande (Sapienza University of Rome).

Reviewers: Diana Martella (Autonomous University of Chile), Maria Casagrande (Sapienza University of Rome).

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Wang, P., Zhang, Q. & Zhang, KL. Older adults show less interference from task-irrelevant social categories: evidence from the garner paradigm. Cogn Process 19, 411–418 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0843-4

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