No evidence for strategic nature of age-related slowing in sentence processing.

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 1045-1059
Author(s):  
Svetlana Malyutina ◽  
Anna Laurinavichyute ◽  
Maria Terekhina ◽  
Yevgeniy Lapin
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Age Related

Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Müller-Feldmeth ◽  
Katharina Ahnefeld ◽  
Adriana Hanulíková
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Dementia Patients ◽  
Age Related

AbstractWe used self-paced reading to examine whether stereotypical associations of verbs with women or men as prototypical agents (e.g. the craftsman knits a sweater) are activated during sentence processing in dementia patients and healthy older adults. Effects of stereotypical knowledge on language processing have frequently been observed in young adults, but little is known about age-related changes in the activation and integration of stereotypical information. While syntactic processing may remain intact, semantic capacities are often affected in dementia. Since inferences based on gender stereotypes draw on social and world knowledge, access to stereotype information may also be affected in dementia patients. Results from dementia patients (n = 9, average age 86.6) and healthy older adults (n = 14, average age 79.5) showed slower reading times and less accuracy in comprehension scores for dementia patients compared to the control group. While activation of stereotypical associations of verbs was visible in both groups, they differed with respect to the time-course of processing. The effect of stereotypes on comprehension accuracy was visible for healthy adults only. The evidence from reading times suggests that older adults with and without dementia engage stereotypical inferences during reading, which is in line with research on young adults.

scholarly journals Older adults show a more sustained pattern of effortful listening than young adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan McGarrigle ◽  
Sarah Knight ◽  
Lyndon Rakusen ◽  
Jason Geller ◽  
Sven Mattys
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Adult Group ◽  
Listening Effort ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Listening Task

Listening to speech in adverse conditions can be challenging and effortful, especially for older adults. This study examined age-related differences in effortful listening by recording changes in the task-evoked pupil response (TEPR; a physiological marker of listening effort) both at the level of sentence processing and over the entire course of a listening task. A total of 65 (32 young adults; 33 older adults) participants performed a speech recognition task in the presence of a competing talker, while moment-to-moment changes in pupil size were continuously monitored. Participants were also administered the Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale; a questionnaire assessing daily life listening fatigue within four domains (social, cognitive, emotional, physical). Normalized TEPRs were overall larger and more steeply rising and falling around the peak in the older versus the young adult group during sentence processing. Additionally, mean TEPRs over the course of the listening task were more stable in the older versus the young adult group, consistent with a more sustained recruitment of compensatory attentional resources to maintain task performance. No age-related differences were found in terms of total daily life listening fatigue; however, older adults reported higher scores than young adults within the social domain. Overall, this study provides evidence for qualitatively distinct patterns of physiological arousal between young and older adults consistent with age-related upregulation in resource allocation during listening. A more detailed understanding of age-related changes in the subjective and physiological mechanisms that underlie effortful listening will ultimately help to address complex communication needs in aging listeners.

scholarly journals Coherence between brain activation and speech envelope at word and sentence levels showed age-related differences in low frequency bands

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-62
Author(s):  
Orsolya B Kolozsvári ◽  
Weiyong Xu ◽  
Georgia Gerike ◽  
Tiina Parviainen ◽  
Lea Nieminen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Frequency Bands ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Speech Envelope ◽  
Stimulus Length ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Speech Tracking

Speech perception is dynamic and shows changes across development. In parallel, functional differences in brain development over time have been well documented and these differences may interact with changes in speech perception during infancy and childhood. Further, there is evidence that the two hemispheres contribute unequally to speech segmentation at the sentence and phonemic levels. To disentangle those contributions, we studied the cortical tracking of various sized units of speech that are crucial for spoken language processing in children (4.7-9.3 year-olds, N=34) and adults (N=19). We measured participants’ magnetoencephalogram (MEG) responses to syllables, words and sentences, calculated the coherence between the speech signal and MEG responses at the level of words and sentences, and further examined auditory evoked responses to syllables. Age-related differences were found for coherence values at the delta and theta frequency bands. Both frequency bands showed an effect of stimulus type, although this was attributed to the length of the stimulus and not linguistic unit size. There was no difference between hemispheres at the source level either in coherence values for word or sentence processing or in evoked response to syllables. Results highlight the importance of the lower frequencies for speech tracking in the brain across different lexical units. Further, stimulus length affects the speech-brain associations suggesting methodological approaches should be selected carefully when studying speech envelope processing at the neural level. Speech tracking in the brain seems decoupled from more general maturation of the auditory cortex.

Age-Related Differences in the Online Processing of Spoken Semantic Context and the Effect of Semantic Competition: Evidence From Eye Gaze

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-327
Author(s):  
Tami Harel-Arbeli ◽  
Arthur Wingfield ◽  
Yuval Palgi ◽  
Boaz M. Ben-David
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Context Processing ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Semantic Competition

Purpose The study examined age-related differences in the use of semantic context and in the effect of semantic competition in spoken sentence processing. We used offline (response latency) and online (eye gaze) measures, using the “visual world” eye-tracking paradigm. Method Thirty younger and 30 older adults heard sentences related to one of four images presented on a computer monitor. They were asked to touch the image corresponding to the final word of the sentence (target word). Three conditions were used: a nonpredictive sentence, a predictive sentence suggesting one of the four images on the screen (semantic context), and a predictive sentence suggesting two possible images (semantic competition). Results Online eye gaze data showed no age-related differences with nonpredictive sentences, but revealed slowed processing for older adults when context was presented. With the addition of semantic competition to context, older adults were slower to look at the target word after it had been heard. In contrast, offline latency analysis did not show age-related differences in the effects of context and competition. As expected, older adults were generally slower to touch the image than younger adults. Conclusions Traditional offline measures were not able to reveal the complex effect of aging on spoken semantic context processing. Online eye gaze measures suggest that older adults were slower than younger adults to predict an indicated object based on semantic context. Semantic competition affected online processing for older adults more than for younger adults, with no accompanying age-related differences in latency. This supports an early age-related inhibition deficit, interfering with processing, and not necessarily with response execution.

scholarly journals Age-related changes in consonant and sentence processing

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Woods ◽  
Zoe Doss ◽  
Timothy J. Herron ◽  
E. William Yund
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Changes
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