Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva.
Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-Marseille University.
Cogn Sci. 2020 Nov;44(11):e12915. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12915.
The lexical-semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical-semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age-specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school-age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age-groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) to compute measures that capture age-specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical-semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture-naming task on a new group of participants within the same age-groups as for Study 1. The results show that age-specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age-group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age-specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical-semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical-semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks.
心理词汇的词汇语义组织必然会随年龄变化而改变。然而，词汇语义因素对词汇处理的影响通常基于招募年轻成年群体的研究。本研究旨在探讨特定年龄的语义组织在多大程度上可以预测整个生命周期（从学龄儿童到老年人）的参考词生成表现。在研究 1 中，我们对六个年龄组（10 至 80 岁）的参与者进行了自由语义联想任务，以计算可捕捉整个生命周期中心理词汇特定年龄属性的度量。这些度量与心理词汇的可用丰富度和具体词汇的词汇语义网络原型性在整个生命周期中的变化有关。在研究 2 中，我们使用收集到的数据来预测在与研究 1 相同年龄组的新参与者中进行图片命名任务的表现。结果表明，特定年龄的语义可用丰富度和网络原型性会影响词汇生成速度，而仅在年轻成年人中收集到的语义变量则不会。给定年龄组的受试者之间更丰富和更典型的语义网络与更快的词汇生成速度相关。当前的结果表明，特定年龄的语义组织对于预测整个生命周期的词汇语义行为至关重要。同样，这些结果也为理解心理词汇的词汇语义属性和参考任务中的词汇选择提供了线索。
