McMurtrie, Frances (2013) Assessing the Influence of Age on Category Norms in Australia. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the influence of age on category norm responses to determine which categories are particularly vulnerable to this influence and which are more stable across age ranges. It was hypothesised that some categories would be found to be vulnerable to the influence of age. Recently collected Australian archival data from 325 male and 446 female participants were analysed to determine whether younger participants gave significantly different responses from older participants to 75 categories. The top five responses were retrieved from an online database for analysis, as this amount covered an average of 73% of the total responses to each category and it was decided this would be sufficient to test the hypothesis. The data were analysed by conducting individual Chi-Square Test of Independence analyses for each of the 75 categories, with effect size (Cramer’s V) also reported. The significance level was set at p < .001 due to the Chi-Square Test of Independence being considered sensitive to the family-wise error which could have occurred in conducting this number of analyses with a higher significance level. The hypothesis was supported with responses to 63 of 75 categories found to differ significantly between the two groups, p < .001. The effect of trends throughout different periods of time on category norm responses was considered as a possible explanation for these results. The practical application of the resulting category norms for semantic memory testing for Australia’s ageing population was also discussed.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology, Counselling and Community (1 Jul 2013 - 31 Dec 2014) |
| Supervisors: | Liam Hendry |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Sep 2025 01:26 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Sep 2025 01:26 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | age, semantic memory, category norms, category, instance |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52570 |
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