van Loon-Vervoorn W A, Willemsen I
Psychologisch Laboratorium, Vakgroep Psychonomie, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht.
Tijdschr Gerontol Geriatr. 1989 Apr;20(2):59-65.
In elderly with and without dementia a facilitating effect of word imagery on word association was found, as was in younger subjects with whom Dutch word association norms were assembled. Words with high imagery values evoke more common responses and less blanks than words with low imagery values. In the younger group also an interaction of imagery and age of acquisition was found, i.e. the effect of imagery on commonality in this group was only present in late acquired words. The absence of this interaction in both elderly with and without dementia indicates a disturbance of lexical knowledge dependent on the age of acquisition of words. Early acquired words have a strong sensorimotor basis, whereas words acquired later are predominantly based on verbal definition (conceptual versus propositional knowledge). Both subject groups have difficulties in retrieving words that specify a property relationship to a late acquired stimulus word, as in 'desert-sand', while words that specify an 'is a' relationship with the stimulus word, as in 'dagger-knife', are easily retrieved. The main difference between elderly with and without dementia was the large number of multiword responses in dementia, a result that indicates a loss of lexical strategies in word finding. Whether the incidentally reported increase in multiword responses in some normal elderly forecasts an approaching dementia needs further research.
在患有和未患痴呆症的老年人中，发现了词语意象对词语联想的促进作用，这与荷兰语词语联想规范所收集的年轻受试者中的情况相同。意象值高的词语比意象值低的词语能唤起更多的常见反应且空白更少。在较年轻的组中还发现了意象与习得年龄之间的相互作用，即该组中意象对常见性的影响仅存在于较晚习得的词语中。患有和未患痴呆症的老年人中均不存在这种相互作用，这表明依赖于词语习得年龄的词汇知识受到了干扰。早期习得的词语具有强大的感觉运动基础，而后期习得的词语主要基于言语定义（概念性知识与命题性知识）。两个受试者组在检索与较晚习得的刺激词具有属性关系的词语时都有困难，例如“沙漠 - 沙子”，而与刺激词具有“是一种”关系的词语，例如“匕首 - 刀”，则很容易被检索到。患有痴呆症和未患痴呆症的老年人之间的主要区别在于痴呆症患者中有大量多词反应，这一结果表明在词语查找中词汇策略的丧失。一些正常老年人中偶然报告的多词反应增加是否预示着即将发生痴呆症，这需要进一步研究。
