Kail Michèle, Lemaire Patrick, Lecacheur Mireille
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Aix-Marseille University and CNRS, Marseille, France.
Exp Aging Res. 2012;38(2):186-207. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2012.660031.
BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: A goal of language and aging research is to determine the nature of change in language-processing skills. In this study the authors examine the role of age and use of cues (e.g., word order, verbal agreement, sentence structure) on online sentence processing.
French young and older adults were asked to detect grammatical violations in sentences as quickly as possible. Detection times were analyzed as a function of participants' age and sentence characteristics (i.e., violation type, span, and position).
Above and beyond main effects of participant's age and linguistic features, results showed age-related differences in effects of linguistic cues on sentence processing and important individual differences during aging in hierarchies of cue strength.
Young and older adults use similar linguistic cues in the online process, but loss of cognitive resources with age shows a cost of cue use and a greater use of context.
背景/研究背景：语言与衰老研究的一个目标是确定语言处理技能变化的本质。在本研究中，作者考察了年龄和线索使用（如词序、主谓一致、句子结构）对在线句子处理的作用。
要求法国的年轻人和老年人尽快检测句子中的语法错误。将检测时间作为参与者年龄和句子特征（即错误类型、跨度和位置）的函数进行分析。
除了参与者年龄和语言特征的主效应外，结果还显示，语言线索对句子处理的影响存在与年龄相关的差异，且在衰老过程中线索强度层次结构方面存在重要的个体差异。
年轻人和老年人在在线处理过程中使用相似的语言线索，但随着年龄增长认知资源的丧失显示了线索使用的代价以及对语境的更多利用。
