ABSTRACT
Older adults frequently report trouble retrieving words, which is often tested by confrontation naming tasks. However, with inconsistencies among the relevant literature, this ageing effect requires an updated meta-analysis (with the only meta-analysis conducted in 1997), especially when no meta-analysis has been conducted on how such an effect may be modulated by the important factor of education. By synthesizing 41 primary studies, the present meta-analysis revealed a significant ageing effect on confrontation naming (indexed by accuracy), which was modulated by participant age and education. First, a significant ageing effect only occurred in participants aged 70 and above (compared with participants below 60). Second, participants with low- and middle-level education exhibited significantly larger ageing effects than those with high-level education. Third, for the age-and-education interaction, an ageing effect occurred as early as 60 in participants in the low-and-middle education level, while this critical age for participants with high-level education is 70.
Data availability statement
The data and the R script to implement the present meta-analysis could be accessed via Mendeley Data (doi: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/4pzbv8rvmm/1).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 We identified two possible factors that may help explain the presence of the two outliers. In Schmitter-Edgecombe et al. (Citation2000), several items used in their naming task were found to be in favor of the older participants (see Ashaie & Obler, Citation2014); and in Marien et al. (Citation1998), the sample sizes of two participant groups were too small (i.e., 7 for the intermediate group and 12 for the older group with matched education).