Aging on the input versus output side: Theoretical implications of age-linked asymmetries between detecting versus retrieving orthographic information.

MacKay, Donald G.; Abrams, Lise; Pedroza, Manissa J.

doi:10.1037//0882-7974.14.1.3

Cited by 21 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 48 publications

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“…Consistent with older adults' self-reported experiences (Lovelace and Twohig 1990;Schweich et al 1992), much of this work has found age-related declines in lexical tasks, as reflected by accuracy decreases and slowdowns. Importantly, such performance declines are not uniform, and their shape and extent may depend on participant characteristics (e.g., Connor et al 2004;Tainturier, Tremblay, and Lecours 1992), item properties (e.g., Balota et al 2004;Le Dorze and Durocher 1992;Reifegerste, Meyer, Zwitserlood, and Ullman 2021), or the task at hand (e.g., Cohen-Shikora andBalota 2016a, 2016b;MacKay, Abrams, and Pedroza 1999;Reifegerste et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological processing across the adult lifespan: a tale of gains and losses

Reifegerste

2024

JLAR

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Despite increasing research on language in aging, age effects on morphological processing have received comparatively little attention. Some previous evidence suggests that while regular morphology (e.g., walk-walked) may remain relatively stable in older age, irregular morphology (e.g., bring-brought) shows signs of age-related decreases in processing efficiency. However, the underlying reasons for these declines are unclear. The current study sought to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of age-related effects on German noun plurals: default plurals (posited to follow a default rule [e.g., Zebra-Zebras 'zebra(s)']) and predictable and unpredictable non-default plurals (closed class plurals, in which the plural is either phonologically predictable from the singular [e.g., Flasche-Flaschen 'bottle(s)'] or unpredictable [e.g., Nest-Nester 'nest(s)']). In a cross-modal priming experiment, 283 healthy German native speakers (aged 18–91 years) performed lexical decisions on singular nouns which take different types of plural affixes, and which were primed by either their plural form ("morphological condition") or an unrelated noun ("unrelated condition"). Additionally, several cognitive abilities (declarative, procedural, and working memory, interference control, processing speed) were tested to assess their mediating role for morphological processing. The results revealed distinct developmental trajectories for default versus non-default plurals: priming effects (unrelated-morphological condition) for predictable and unpredictable non-default plurals decreased with increasing age, with age-related declines in declarative memory mediating these declines. In contrast, priming effects for default plurals increased with increasing age. Although the reasons for this increase remain to be clarified, we suggest lifelong experience with the computation of these forms as a possible mechanism.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological processing across the adult lifespan: a tale of gains and losses

Reifegerste

2024

JLAR

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Spelling recognition after exposure to misspellings: Implications for abstractionist vs. episodic theories of orthographic representations

2013

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Age-related differences in resolving semantic and phonological competition during receptive language tasks

et al. 2016

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Receptive language (e.g., reading) is largely preserved in the aging brain, and semantic processes in particular may continue to develop throughout the lifespan. We investigated the neural underpinnings of phonological and semantic retrieval in older and younger adults during receptive language tasks (rhyme and semantic similarity judgments). In particular, we were interested in the role of competition on language retrieval and varied the similarities between a cue, target, and distractor that were hypothesized to affect the mental process of competition. Behaviorally, all participants responded faster and more accurately during the rhyme task compared to the semantic task. Moreover, older adults demonstrated higher response accuracy than younger adults during the semantic task. Although there were no overall age-related differences in the neuroimaging results, an Age × Task interaction was found in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), with older adults producing greater activation than younger adults during the semantic condition. These results suggest that at lower levels of task difficulty, older and younger adults engaged similar neural networks that benefited behavioral performance. As task difficulty increased during the semantic task, older adults relied more heavily on largely left hemisphere language regions, as well as regions involved in perception and internal monitoring. Our results are consistent with the stability of language comprehension across the adult lifespan and illustrate how the preservation of semantic representations with aging may influence performance under conditions of increased task difficulty.

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Aging on the input versus output side: Theoretical implications of age-linked asymmetries between detecting versus retrieving orthographic information.

Cited by 21 publications

References 48 publications

Morphological processing across the adult lifespan: a tale of gains and losses

Morphological processing across the adult lifespan: a tale of gains and losses

Spelling recognition after exposure to misspellings: Implications for abstractionist vs. episodic theories of orthographic representations

Age-related differences in resolving semantic and phonological competition during receptive language tasks

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