Age-Related Differences in Semantic Categorization: The Roles of Typicality and Animacy Based on Updated Typicality Norms

Key Points

• This study investigates how aging affects semantic categorization based on typicality and animacy, assessing the influence of global processing speed.
• Two experiments using typicality norms for stimulus generation; Experiment 1 focuses on stimulus validity, Experiment 2 compares responses of 15 young and 15 elderly participants.
• Category judgment tasks manipulated typicality (high vs. low) and animacy (animate vs. inanimate) with analyses conducted using generalized linear mixed models for accuracy and linear mixed models for response time.
• Elderly participants exhibited significantly slower response times compared to young participants, particularly with low typicality and inanimate conditions.
• Significant interactions were found between typicality and animacy, as well as between age and condition, indicating performance differences in specific scenarios.
• Accuracy was overall lower in the elderly group, though stimulus characteristics did not show significant effects in the GLMM analysis.