Category superiority effects in young and elderly adults.

Recent research indicates that some elderly persons experience an age-related visual processing deficit, for which they may attempt to compensate through the use of relational information. This hypothesis was tested, using the category superiority effect as a model system. In studies of young adults, the category superiority effect has been shown to be confined to relatively abstract stimulus materials such as verbal items, and to be absent for more concrete representations such as photographs of actual objects. However, it was predicted that, contrary to the data from young adults, a category superiority effect would be present in elderly adults for both verbal and pictorial stimuli, because elderly people would be expected to use category information to compensate for imageric deficits. This prediction was confirmed, consistent with the hypothesis.