Lexical effects and lexical properties associated with National Adult Reading Test (NART) stimuli in healthy young adults and healthy elderly adults.

Fifty healthy younger adults and 45 healthy elderly adults performed a speeded lexical decision task (LDT). Stimuli consisted of 57 National Adult Reading Test (NART) words (the NART consists of "irregular" words that violate standard spelling-to-sound correspondence rules) and 57 pronounceable pseudowords (e.g., blant). Both groups displayed statistically equivalent lexicality (PW-W) effects, and error rates were lower in elderly adults. With groups equated on vocabulary ability, lexicality effects remained the same and error rates did not differ across either group. Correlational analyses confirmed the role played by word frequency and word familiarity in latencies to NART stimuli. Results are discussed regarding the importance of obtaining speeded latency measures for age-related word recognition comparisons.