The effects of word frequency and word predictability during first- and second-language paragraph reading in bilingual older and younger adults.

Abstract

We used eye movement measures of paragraph reading to examine how word frequency and word predictability impact first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) word processing in matched bilingual older and younger adults, varying in amount of current L2 experience. Our key findings were threefold. First, across both early- and late-stage reading, word frequency effects were generally larger in older than in younger adults, whereas word predictability effects were generally age-invariant. Second, across both age groups and both reading stages, word frequency effects were larger in the L2 than in the L1, whereas word predictability effects were language-invariant. Third, graded differences in current L2 experience modulated L1 and L2 word processing in younger adults, but had no impact in older adults. Specifically, greater current L2 experience facilitated L2 word processing, but impeded L1 word processing among younger adults only. Taken together, we draw 2 main conclusions. First, bilingual older adults experience changes in word-level processing that are language-non-specific, potentially because lexical accessibility decreases with age. Second, bilingual older adults experience changes in word-level processing that are insensitive to graded differences in current L2 experience, potentially because lexical representations reach a functional ceiling over time. (PsycINFO Database Record

Effects of aging and text-stimulus quality on the word-frequency effect during Chinese reading.

“…These findings are important in two respects. First, they suggests that age differences in word frequency effects in Chinese reading may be similar to those observed for alphabetic languages (Kliegl et al, 2004;McGowan et al, 2014;Rayner et al, 2006Rayner et al, , 2013Whitford & Titone, 2017), and in line with the predictions of models of eye movement control (Engbert et al, 2005;Reichle et al, 2003). Second, the findings suggest that the aging effects we observed arise from a small proportion of long fixation times on words.…”

“…It was of particular concern for the present research to assess age differences in the word frequency effect in Chinese reading. Previous research with alphabetic languages shows larger word frequency effects (i.e., longer fixation times for lower frequency words) for older than younger adults (Kliegl et al, 2004;McGowan et al, 2015;Rayner et al, 2006Rayner et al, , 2013Whitford & Titone, 2017). Moreover, simulations of aging effects in models of eye movement control attribute these larger word frequency effects to slower lexical processing in older age (Laubrock et al, 2006;Rayner et al, 2006).…”

Effects of Normative Aging on Eye Movements during Reading

“…Increased skipping and longer forward saccades are not always observed in aging studies, however, leading some researchers to question the evidential support for risky reading [100,101]. For instance, both Choi et al (2007) [101] and Whitford and Titone (2017) [100] found that older participants in their experiments did not skip words more frequently than young adults. However, one possibility, also considered by these critics, is that the reading strategy used by the older adults may be sensitive to task demands and so vary as a function of text difficulty.…”

“…Studies comparing the eye movements of older adult readers (typically 60+ years) and young adult controls (18-30 years) show that older adults make more and, on average, longer fixations and more regressions [64,80,[82][83][84][95][96][97][98][99][100]. These findings suggest the older adults read more slowly and experience greater reading difficulty.…”

“…Moreover, the paradigm employed by Choi et al involved making surreptitious changes to upcoming words and used stimuli containing deliberate misspellings, which also may have encouraged participants to read carefully. The Whitford and Titone (2017) study [100] examined paragraph reading, and, having read each paradigm, participants had to answer multiple open-ended comprehension questions. As the authors note, this may have imposed attentional and working memory demands that also encouraged the older adults to read very carefully.…”