Older Adults Filter Irrelevant Information During Metaphor Comprehension

Abstract

In general, older adults are less likely than younger adults to inhibit irrelevant information when reading literal text (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). Are older adults also less likely to inhibit irrelevant information during metaphor comprehension? Young (mean age 19.2 years) and older adults (mean age 73.6 years) participated in a timed property-verification task. Although the older adults were generally slower than the younger, they displayed the same pattern of data. After reading metaphors, both groups verified metaphor-relevant properties more quickly after a metaphor prime than after a literal control prime, whereas metaphor-irrelevant properties were responded to more slowly after metaphor primes, relative to the controls. These results suggest that older adults, like younger ones, enhance metaphor-relevant properties and filter out metaphor-irrelevant properties during metaphor comprehension. Older adults' metaphor comprehension processes thus seem intact. Mechanisms for filtering out metaphor-irrelevant information are considered.