Bugaiska Aurélia, Thibaut Jean-Pierre
a Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement (LEAD) , CNRS UMR 5022, University of Burgundy , Dijon , France.
Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2015;22(3):340-56. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2014.947915. Epub 2014 Sep 12.
This study was designed to investigate the effect of aging on analogical reasoning by manipulating the strength of semantic association (LowAssoc or HighAssoc) and the number of distracters' semantic analogies of the A:B::C:D type and to determine which factors might be responsible for the age-related differences on analogical reasoning by testing two different theoretical frameworks: the inhibition hypothesis and the speed mediation hypothesis. We compared young adults and two groups of aging people (old and old-old) with word analogies of the A:B::C:D format. Results indicate an age-related effect on analogical reasoning, this effect being greatest with LowAssoc analogies. It was not associated with the presence of semantic distractors. Moreover, the results show that the variance part of the analogy task due to age was mainly explained by processing speed (rather than by inhibition) in the case of old participants and by both processing speed and inhibition in the old-old group. These results are discussed in relation to current models of aging and their interaction with the processes involved in analogical reasoning.
本研究旨在通过操纵语义联想强度（低联想或高联想）以及A:B::C:D类型干扰项的语义类比数量，来探究衰老对类比推理的影响，并通过测试两种不同的理论框架：抑制假说和速度中介假说，确定哪些因素可能导致类比推理中与年龄相关的差异。我们用A:B::C:D格式的词语类比比较了年轻人和两组老年人（老年人和高龄老人）。结果表明，衰老对类比推理有影响，这种影响在低联想类比中最为明显。它与语义干扰项的存在无关。此外，结果表明，在老年参与者中，类比任务因年龄产生的方差部分主要由加工速度（而非抑制）解释，而在高龄老人组中则由加工速度和抑制共同解释。我们结合当前的衰老模型及其与类比推理过程的相互作用对这些结果进行了讨论。
