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Which animal is big? Aging-related effects on the controlled retrieval of information

The efficient use of knowledge requires semantic control processes to retrieve context-relevant information. So far, it is well established that semantic knowledge, as measured with vocabulary tests, do not decline in aging. Yet, it is still unclear if controlled retrieval -the context-driven retrieval of very specific aspects of semantic knowledge- declines in aging, following the same fate of other forms of cognitive control. Here, we tackled this issue by comparing the performance of younger and older native Italian speakers during a semantic feature verification task. To manipulate the control demands, we parametrically varied the semantic significance, a measure of the salience of the target feature for the cue concept. As compared to their young counterparts, older adults showed a greater performance disruption (in terms of reaction times) as the significance value of the target feature decreased. This result suggests that older people have difficulties in regulating the activation within semantic representation, such that they fail to handle non-dominant (or weakly activated) yet task-relevant semantic information.