Lexical Access as a Predictor of Prose Processing in Younger and Older Adults Using Event-related Potential Components PDF Download

Author: Martin Hetu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Verbal ability
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 832

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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"Education, arts and social sciences, natural and technical sciences in the United States and Canada".

Author: Shruti Dave
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780355451207
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Normative aging is thought to influence the efficiency of real-time language processing; a number of researchers have suggested these changes emerge in response to age-related differences in how pre-stored event knowledge is used to pre-activate – or predict – upcoming information. However, the current literature has not been able to converge on a single framework to describe how old age impacts predictive processing, as previous studies have alternately shown that older adults show increased or reduced reliance on predictability information relative to younger adults. In the current set of studies, we suggest that variability in previous findings may have emerged because processing associated with accurate lexical prediction has not been systematically disentangled from processing related to accuracy-independent contextual support (i.e., plausibility and semantic association) in older readers. In Study 1, electrophysiological neural activity (ERPs) reflecting costs and benefits of accurate lexical prediction was compared to ERPs associated with integration of contextual information in both young and older readers. Both the amplitudes and time course of predictive processing did not show specific age-related changes relative to processing associated with contextual support, suggesting effects of age on real-time reading do not reflect specific differences in reliance on predictive mechanisms. Across two experiments in Study 1, older adults on the whole showed increased activity for updating-related processing (PNPs) relative to neural facilitation for expected or predictable items (N400s) as compared to younger adults. Such group-level analyses assume that relations between cognitive or neural functioning and reading strategies are similar within each age group. However, older and younger adults have shown group- and individual-level variability in cognitive resources, language experience, and neural network activity. Therefore, we investigated how within-group differences in cognitive (Study 2) and neural (Study 3) capacity modulated the amplitudes of the neural responses found in Study 1. Models of language processing in aging have suggested a lifetime of language experience may boost reading comprehension and facilitate language processing, while reduced memory and related cognitive resources may diminish reading efficacy. Theoretical frameworks of predictive processing have further posited that readers with strong language experience and cognitive resources may benefit when processing accurately predicted or predictable information, but have not described how aging may moderate these models. In Study 2, we analyzed how old age influenced the effects of working memory, vocabulary skill, and verbal fluency on costs and benefits associated with predictive relative to contextual processing. The results of Study 2 indicate that age-group impacted how working memory impacts neural facilitation associated with accurate prediction, and further influenced how vocabulary and verbal fluency co-modulate neural costs following unsupportive contextual information. These findings suggest age variably and uniquely moderates the relations between cognitive resources and language processing mechanisms. Further theoretical models of predictive processing have suggested that neural resources may also impact the strength of lexical predictions, and have postulated that predictable stimuli result in more synchronous neuronal firing relative to unpredictable information. In Study 3, we examined how neural benefits derived from accurate predictions are impacted by network-level neural synchrony in broadband brain activity, and explored whether firing synchrony showed specific age-related consequences for predictive processing as compared to contextual support. Using an EEG-derived measure suggested to reflect neural synchrony (1/f neural noise), we found noise partially mediated age-related reductions in N400s to accurately predicted items – but did not similarly explain N400 effects of contextual support. Our results show that neural synchrony impacts individual-level differences in predictive processing across the lifespan. Together, the studies in this dissertation demonstrate that the impact of normative aging on predictive processing is informed by individual variability in cognitive resources, language experience, and neural noise. Throughout this dissertation, the methodological and theoretical implications of this finding are discussed with regard to necessary future examinations of language processing in aging.

Author: Victoria Haley Gertel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Language production declines are often observed during healthy aging, while language comprehension remains relatively stable across the adult lifespan. However, language prediction, a process that occurs during comprehension in which individuals anticipate upcoming information, also shows age-related decline. Moreover, language theories suggest that language prediction and language production are related processes. While some studies find evidence in support of this relationship, it is not well understood, and how age factors in, even less so. Therefore, I conducted a series of four studies in younger and older adults to examine the relationship between language prediction and production, and how this relationship might differ with age. Participants completed a series of self-paced reading tasks to examine prediction, language production tasks, and other cognitive tasks to explore possible underlying mechanisms of the prediction--production relationship. Overall, results indicated age-group differences in language production, but the age-group differences in prediction were less reliable. Additionally, results did not consistently demonstrate evidence of predictive processing occurring during the self-paced tasks. However, during the components of the self-paced tasks explicitly requiring language production, there were significant effects of prediction, as well as an interaction between sentence type and age group. Participants across age groups had better performance on the more predictable items, with older adults showing a greater benefit than younger adults in one study. Taken together, this suggests a relationship between language prediction and language production, with some evidence for age-group differences in the relationship. However, more research needs to be conducted to understand what cognitive factors underlie this relationship, as the results from these analyses were not significant.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Author: Alondra Chaire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Brain
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Normal aging comes with increased knowledge, as well as qualitative and quantitative changes in cognitive processes. Previous work with English monolinguals has shown that event-related potential (ERP) measures of sentence comprehension decrease in amplitude (N400), or change in distribution (P600) with age. However, little is known about the electrophysiological correlates of aging with regard to other languages, especially those with richer morpho-syntax than English. In this study, participants read sentences in Spanish, while 2 ERP components related to sentence comprehension were measured: the N400--reflecting meaning-level processes, and the P600--reflecting brain processes sensitive to syntactic information. Sentences included semantic violations, syntactic (gender agreement) violations, or both types of violations. Our aims were to identify the effects of combined semantic and syntactic violations in relation to the effects of single semantic and single syntactic violations on language comprehension in the healthy aging brain. From previous studies in young adults, we predicted that older adults would exhibit larger N400 amplitudes for semantic violations compared to control sentences and gender agreement violations would elicit an increase in late positive amplitude (LPC) compare to control sentences. In addition, double violations were expected to elicit a boosting of the N400 effect over frontal and prefrontal electrodes compared to semantic violations alone, indicating that gender and semantics interact early in processing. As predicted from young adults, we found that semantic violations elicited an N400 and gender agreement violations elicited an LPCa and LPCb. Additionally, we found an unexpected LPC following the N400 due to semantic violations and a LAN preceding the LPC due to gender violations. Finally, based on previous findings in older adults, we found that the N400 effect was trending to reduce with age and no statistic distinction was found between any of the three violations compared to the control at the LPCb window. This suggests that the older adult brain is taxed by reprocessing a sentence after any type of violation in sentence meaning or structure.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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In the study of language production in aging, an important question relates to the relationship between lexical retrieval and syntactic production. Studies have reported changes in syntactic production across the lifespan, but their underlying cause remains unclear. In younger adults, it has been suggested that lexical factors, such as an item"s semantic or phonological representation influence syntactic production; however, the full nature of this influence remains unclear. Studies investigating the type of sentence produced have found semantic facilitation and phonological interference (e.g., Bock, 1986, 1987), but studies investigating response time (e.g., Meyer, 1996) have found the opposite effects. This investigation sought to examine the influence of lexical level information on sentence production in younger and older adults. This was accomplished by concurrently examining reaction time and sentence type effects. In Experiment 1, 61 adults (mean age: 21.8 years) were presented with pictures and distractor words (unrelated, or semantically or phonologically related). Three stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) were used ( -1000ms, -150ms and 150ms). Participants were required to describe each picture. Using an analysis of variance, response time was compared across the different conditions and using generalized estimating equations, the type of sentence produced and the position of the primed word were compared. In Experiment 2, phonological distractors were excluded, and one SOA ( -150ms) was used. Testing involved 83 younger adults (mean age: 22.9 years) and 56 older adults (mean age: 74.7 years). In Experiment 1, semantic distractors resulted in related nouns being produced more often in the subject position. This effect was observed in the analysis of the position of the target noun, but not in the analysis of the type of sentence produced. There were no effects of phonological distractors. In Experiment 2, semantic distractors influenced the type of sentence page.

Author: Cynthia R. Hunter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Jennifer Cupit
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In the study of language production in aging, an important question relates to the relationship between lexical retrieval and syntactic production. Studies have reported changes in syntactic production across the lifespan, but their underlying cause remains unclear. In younger adults, it has been suggested that lexical factors, such as an item"s semantic or phonological representation influence syntactic production; however, the full nature of this influence remains unclear. Studies investigating the type of sentence produced have found semantic facilitation and phonological interference (e.g., Bock, 1986, 1987), but studies investigating response time (e.g., Meyer, 1996) have found the opposite effects. This investigation sought to examine the influence of lexical level information on sentence production in younger and older adults. This was accomplished by concurrently examining reaction time and sentence type effects. In Experiment 1, 61 adults (mean age: 21.8 years) were presented with pictures and distractor words (unrelated, or semantically or phonologically related). Three stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) were used (-1000ms, -150ms and 150ms). Participants were required to describe each picture. Using an analysis of variance, response time was compared across the different conditions and using generalized estimating equations, the type of sentence produced and the position of the primed word were compared. In Experiment 2, phonological distractors were excluded, and one SOA (-150ms) was used. Testing involved 83 younger adults (mean age: 22.9 years) and 56 older adults (mean age: 74.7 years). In Experiment 1, semantic distractors resulted in related nouns being produced more often in the subject position. This effect was observed in the analysis of the position of the target noun, but not in the analysis of the type of sentence produced. There were no effects of phonological distractors. In Experiment 2, semantic distractors influenced the type of sentence produced for both age groups. The groups differed only in error production. No reaction time effects were observed in either experiment. This investigation successfully demonstrated an influence of lexical level information on the syntactic productions of younger and older adults. The two groups were similar in their productions, suggesting that aspects of syntactic production are preserved in older adults.