Mund Iris, Bell Raoul, Buchner Axel
Department of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Exp Aging Res. 2012;38(1):20-41. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2012.636724.
BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: According to inhibitory deficit theory, older adults should be more impaired by visual distractors than younger adults when reading texts. Studies using a multiple-choice recognition test to examine age differences in the impairment of text comprehension due to distractor words yielded inconsistent results.
In the present study, younger participants and older participants were required to read short texts comprising unrelated, related, or no distractor words. Visual acuity was equated between groups. Text recall was assessed using a gist-based propositional scoring procedure.
There were pronounced age differences in reading with distraction. Older adults were slowed down more than younger adults by the presence of distractor words when reading. Furthermore, older adults' story recall was clearly impaired by the presence of distractor material, whereas younger adults' recall performance was not. In addition, older adults were more likely to make intrusion errors.
Consistent with inhibitory deficit theory, the findings suggest that older adults were less able than younger adults to establish a correct mental representation of the target text when distractors were present. Furthermore, older adults were more likely than younger adults to build up incorrect memory representations that comprise distractor concepts. Thus, there are pronounced age differences in the impairment of text comprehension by distracting information.
背景/研究背景：根据抑制缺陷理论，在阅读文本时，老年人应比年轻人更容易受到视觉干扰因素的影响。使用多项选择识别测试来研究干扰词对文本理解损害的年龄差异的研究结果并不一致。
在本研究中，要求年轻参与者和年长参与者阅读包含无关、相关或无干扰词的短文。两组之间的视力相等。使用基于要点的命题评分程序评估文本回忆。
在有干扰的阅读中存在明显的年龄差异。阅读时，干扰词的存在使老年人比年轻人的阅读速度减慢得更多。此外，干扰材料的存在明显损害了老年人的故事回忆，而年轻人的回忆表现则没有受到影响。此外，老年人更容易出现侵入性错误。
与抑制缺陷理论一致，研究结果表明，当存在干扰因素时，老年人比年轻人更难以建立目标文本的正确心理表征。此外，老年人比年轻人更有可能建立包含干扰概念的错误记忆表征。因此，干扰信息对文本理解的损害存在明显的年龄差异。
