The intention interference effect and aging: similar magnitude of effects for young and old adults

Abstract

In young adults, intentions have been shown to be more accessible (e.g. faster reaction times and higher accuracy) compared to other sorts of to-be-remembered information, a result termed an ‘intention superiority effect’ (Goschke & Kuhl, 1993). In the current study, we assessed whether older adults also demonstrate this superiority of intention-related material and we used a new interference paradigm to examine performance. On each trial, participants performed a Stroop-like colour-naming task on a short series of words, including words related to an intention that they encoded at the beginning of the trial. In Experiment 1, results revealed an ‘intention interference effect’ for both young and older adults in which performance was slower for words belonging to an intention that participants intended to carry out versus an intention that did not have to be executed. In Experiment 2, we tested the effect that completing an intention had on the representation of intentions. For both groups, completing an intention led to a decrease in interference in Stroop task performance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.