The Effects of Ageing and Visual Noise on Conceptual Integration during Sentence Reading

Abstract

The effortfulness hypothesis implies that difficulty in decoding the surface form, as in the case of age-related sensory limitations or background noise, consumes the attentional resources that are then unavailable for semantic integration in language comprehension. Because ageing is associated with sensory declines, degrading of the surface form by a noisy background can pose an extra challenge for older adults. In two experiments, this hypothesis was tested in a self-paced moving window paradigm in which younger and older readers’ online allocation of attentional resources to surface decoding and semantic integration was measured as they read sentences embedded in varying levels of visual noise. When visual noise was moderate (Experiment 1), resource allocation among young adults was unaffected but older adults allocated more resources to decode the surface form at the cost of resources that would otherwise be available for semantic processing; when visual noise was relatively intense (Experiment 2), both younger and older participants allocated more attention to the surface form and less attention to semantic processing. The decrease in attentional allocation to semantic integration resulted in reduced recall of core ideas in both experiments, suggesting that a less organized semantic representation was constructed in noise. The greater vulnerability of older adults at relatively low levels of noise is consistent with the effortfulness hypothesis.

Effects of disfluency on cognitive and metacognitive processes and outcomes

“…One may thus conclude that additional time was needed to decipher disfluent text on a superficial level rather than to process the contents more deeply. This notion is supported by studies of Gao et al (2011) as well as of Gao et al (2012). In their studies, making text harder-to-read by adding visual noise increased reading times, but did not positively affect recall performance.…”

Effects of Age, Acoustic Challenge, and Verbal Working Memory on Recall of Narrative Speech

“…Evidence supporting a cognitive component to listening effort also comes from dual-task paradigms (Gosselin & Gagné, 2011), recognition memory for sentences (Van Engen, Chandrasekaran, & Smiljanic, 2012), pupillometry (Kuchinsky et al, 2013; Zekveld, Kramer, & Festen, 2010), and functional brain imaging (Eckert et al, 2009; Erb, Henry, Eisner, & Obleser, 2013; Hervais-Adelman, Carlyon, Johnsrude, & Davis, 2012; Wild et al, 2012). Findings from reading studies suggest cognitive demands that generalize across modality (Gao, Levinthal, & Stine-Morrow, 2012; Gao, Stine-Morrow, Noh, & Eskew Jr., 2011). Thus, the effects of acoustic challenge are not reflected only in auditory processing, but in higher-level cognitive systems that operate on the outputs of perception.…”

“…Indeed, effects of hearing loss were most apparent in detail-level idea units in Piquado et al (2012). On the other hand, in the visual domain, Gao et al (Gao, et al, 2012; Gao, et al, 2011) have reported that visual noise in reading differentially disrupted the recall of main ideas. It may be that the type of materials being tested impacts the narrative level where effects of perceptual challenge are observed.…”

Multi-talker background and semantic priming effect

“…Recently, semantic and syntactic integration difficulties if a signal is degraded have been reported in the visual modality (Gao et al, 2011, 2012). Experiments conducted by Gao et al (2011) using visual noise (i.e., pixel's brightness variation) showed that if participants allocate more resources to formal processes, semantic integration is affected.…”