摘要：Research findings regarding access to semantic memory in older adults are inconsistent, showing in some cases even equivalent levels of performance as young adults. While reduction in the function of the brain is a normal outcome of aging, the equivalent levels of performance may be attributed to the possibility that compensatory mechanisms occur in older individuals. Neuroimaging evidence has suggested that a pattern of neuroflmctional reorganization, the Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in OLDer Adults (HAROLD, Cabeza et al., 1997), may occur in high-performing older individuals: those with higher levels of education. This phenomenon corresponds to a bilateral pattern of activation associated with a given task that occurs in older individuals than in young adults, who show unilateral activation for the same task. Since pattern of access to emotional words (as part of the semantic system) in young individuals has been shown to be mostly unilateral, the present study was designed to investigate the possibility that a bilateral pattern of access would occur in high-performing older individuals over the course of access to emotional words.
