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34
The facilitative influence of phonological similarity and neighborhood frequency in speech production in younger and older adults
- Memory & Cognition
, 2003
"... The influence of phonological similarity neighborhoods on the speed and accuracy of speech production was investigated with speech-error elicitation and picture-naming tasks. The results from 2 speech-error elicitation techniques—the spoonerisms of laboratory induced predisposition technique (B. J. ..."
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The influence of phonological similarity neighborhoods on the speed and accuracy of speech production was investigated with speech-error elicitation and picture-naming tasks. The results from 2 speech-error elicitation techniques—the spoonerisms of laboratory induced predisposition technique (B. J. Baars,
Aging and language production
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
, 2004
"... ABSTRACT—Experimental research and older adults ’ reports of their own experience suggest that the ability to produce the spoken forms of familiar words declines with aging. Older adults experience more word-finding failures, such as tip-of-thetongue states, than young adults do, and this and other ..."
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Cited by 22 (3 self)
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ABSTRACT—Experimental research and older adults ’ reports of their own experience suggest that the ability to produce the spoken forms of familiar words declines with aging. Older adults experience more word-finding failures, such as tip-of-thetongue states, than young adults do, and this and other speech production failures appear to stem from difficulties in retrieving the sounds of words. Recent evidence has identified a parallel age-related decline in retrieving the spelling of familiar words. Models of cognitive aging must explain why these aspects of language production decline with aging whereas semantic processes are well maintained. We describe a model wherein aging weakens connections among linguistic representations, thereby reducing the transmission of excitation from one representation to another. The structure of the representational systems for word phonology and orthography makes them vulnerable to
On the tipof-the-tongue: Neural correlates of increased word-finding failures in normal aging
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
, 2007
"... Abstract & Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences are frustrating wordfinding failures where people are temporarily unable to produce a word they are certain they know. TOT frequency increases with normal aging during adulthood, and behavioral evidence suggests that the underlying deficit is in re ..."
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Cited by 15 (2 self)
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Abstract & Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences are frustrating wordfinding failures where people are temporarily unable to produce a word they are certain they know. TOT frequency increases with normal aging during adulthood, and behavioral evidence suggests that the underlying deficit is in retrieving the complete phonology of the target word during production. The present study investigated the neural correlates of this phonological retrieval deficit. We obtained 3-D T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) for healthy participants between 19 and 88 years old and used voxel-based morphometry to measure gray matter density throughout the brain. In a separate session, participants named celebrities cued by pictures and descriptions, indicating when they had a TOT, and also completed Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM), a task that does not involve phonological production. The number of TOTs increased with age and also with gray matter atrophy in the left insula, an area implicated in phonological production. The relation between TOTs and left insula atrophy cannot be attributed to the correlation of each variable with age because TOTs were related to insula atrophy even with age effects removed. Moreover, errors on the RPM increased with age, but performance did not correlate with gray matter density in the insula. These results provide, for the first time, an association between a region in the neural language system and the rise in age-related word-finding failures and suggest that age-related atrophy in neural regions important for phonological production may contribute to age-related word production failures. &
Asymmetric aging effects on semantic and phonological processes: Naming in the picture-word interference task
- Neuropsychology
, 2002
"... In 2 experiments, participants named pictures while ignoring auditory word distractors. For pictures with homophone names (e.g., ball), distractors semantically related to the nondepicted meaning (e.g., prom) facilitated naming by top-down phonological connections for young but not for older adults ..."
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Cited by 13 (1 self)
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In 2 experiments, participants named pictures while ignoring auditory word distractors. For pictures with homophone names (e.g., ball), distractors semantically related to the nondepicted meaning (e.g., prom) facilitated naming by top-down phonological connections for young but not for older adults. Slowing from unrelated distractors and facilitation from phonologically related distractors were age invariant except in distractors that were both semantically and phonologically related. Only distractors semantically related to the picture interfered more for older than younger adults. These results are inconsistent with age-linked deficits in inhibition of irrelevant information from either internal or external sources. Rather, aging affects priming transmission in a connectionist network with asymmetric effects on semantic and phonological connections involved in comprehension and production, respectively. Research on language and aging has shown that some language functions are well maintained in old age, whereas others show pronounced age-related declines. Access to the meaning of words as reflected in vocabulary scores, for example, is relatively stable during adulthood
Do alternative names block young and older adults’ retrieval of proper names
- Brain and Language
, 2004
"... Abstract This study evaluates whether tip of the tongue experiences (TOTs) are caused by a more accessible word which blocks retrieval of the target word, especially for older adults. In a ''competitor priming'' paradigm, young and older adults produced the name of a famous char ..."
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Cited by 9 (1 self)
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Abstract This study evaluates whether tip of the tongue experiences (TOTs) are caused by a more accessible word which blocks retrieval of the target word, especially for older adults. In a ''competitor priming'' paradigm, young and older adults produced the name of a famous character (e.g., Eliza Doolittle) in response to a question and subsequently named a picture of a famous actor or actress depicting this character (e.g., Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle). Older adults produced more TOTs than young adults, but prior production of a related character name did not affect TOTs, although it did reduce incorrect responses. There were no age differences in knowledge of films and TV and thus the age-related increase in TOTs is not because older adults have more relevant knowledge. The findings are compatible with models in which alternate words are a consequence not a cause of TOT.
Specific effects of aging on proper name retrieval: Now you see them, now you don’t
- Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
, 2006
"... Existing research is equivocal as to whether aging negatively affects the retrieval of proper names more than other types of words. To clarify previous results, this study had young and older participants name and provide specific biographical information in response to pictures of familiar celebrit ..."
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Cited by 8 (1 self)
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Existing research is equivocal as to whether aging negatively affects the retrieval of proper names more than other types of words. To clarify previous results, this study had young and older participants name and provide specific biographical information in response to pictures of familiar celebrities; it used two different measures of recall errors. An analysis of tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) responses indicated specific age-related increases in TOTs for names compared with words representing biographical information. An analysis including all other (non-TOT) recall errors did not indicate age-related deficits in name retrieval. These findings highlight the importance of the measures adopted in forming conclusions about age effects on the retrieval of names. F OR people of all ages, names are prone to retrieval failures,including tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states, which are those frustrating instances when we cannot produce well-known information even though we believe retrieval is imminent (e.g.,
The effects of phonological neighborhoods on pronunciation variation in conversational speech
, 2011
"... This dissertation investigates the effects of phonological neighborhoods on pronunciation variation in conversational speech. Phonological neighbors are defined as words that are different in one and only one phoneme by addition, deletion and substitution. Phonological neighborhood density refers to ..."
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Cited by 4 (1 self)
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This dissertation investigates the effects of phonological neighborhoods on pronunciation variation in conversational speech. Phonological neighbors are defined as words that are different in one and only one phoneme by addition, deletion and substitution. Phonological neighborhood density refers to the number of neighbors a certain word has. Previous research has shown that phonological neighbors impede auditory perception, but facilitate lexical production. As a result, words from dense neighborhoods are harder to perceive, but easier to produce, than words from sparse neighborhoods. Following these effects, two opposite hypotheses can be formed regarding the effects of neighborhood density on pronunciation variation. The listener-oriented hypothesis predicts that high-density words will be hyperarticulated, in order to compensate for their perceptual difficulty. But the speaker-oriented hypothesis predicts that high-density words are more likely to undergo speech reduction, as other words that are easy to produce (such as high-frequency words). To test these hypotheses, two statistical models are constructed to investigate neighborhood effects on pronunciation variation in CVC monomorphemic content words. All speech data come from the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech (Pitt, Dilley, Johnson, Kiesling,
Phonologically mediated priming of preexisting and new associations in young and older adults
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
, 2004
"... Two experiments investigated phonologically mediated priming of preexisting and new associations in word retrieval. Young and older adults completed paired word stems with the first word that came to mind. Priming of preexisting associations occurred when word-stem pairs containing homophones (e.g., ..."
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Cited by 4 (1 self)
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Two experiments investigated phonologically mediated priming of preexisting and new associations in word retrieval. Young and older adults completed paired word stems with the first word that came to mind. Priming of preexisting associations occurred when word-stem pairs containing homophones (e.g., beech-s____) showed more completions with the target (e.g., sand) relative to unrelated pairs (e.g., batch-s____), with more priming for subordinate than dominant homophones. Priming occurred for new associations independent of dominance, such that word-stem pairs containing homophones (e.g., beech-l____ _ and beach-l_____) were completed with the same word (e.g., laugh) more often than unrelated pairs (e.g., beech-l____ _ and batch-l_____). No age differences in phonologically mediated priming were found for either type of association, suggesting age equivalence in the utilization of bottom-up phonological connections. Research on phonologically mediated priming of visual stimuli has shown that a word’s meaning can be accessed through its phonology (Lesch & Pollatsek, 1993; Lukatela & Turvey, 1994). For example, people are faster to recognize the word sand when it is preceded by the word beech relative to an unrelated word such as batch, suggesting that the phonological code for beech is activated prior to its lexical representation.
New age-linked asymmetries: aging and the processing of familiar versus novel language on the input versus output side
- Psychology and Aging
, 2007
"... This research demonstrates 3 new age-linked asymmetries between identifying versus retrieving phono-logical information. Young and older adults read aloud familiar isolated words (e.g., mind) and novel pseudowords (e.g., mond) in a production task and identified lexical status for identical stimuli ..."
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Cited by 4 (2 self)
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This research demonstrates 3 new age-linked asymmetries between identifying versus retrieving phono-logical information. Young and older adults read aloud familiar isolated words (e.g., mind) and novel pseudowords (e.g., mond) in a production task and identified lexical status for identical stimuli in a comprehension task. Young adults made fewer errors than older adults in production but not compre-hension (an age-related input–output asymmetry), and they produced pseudowords but not words with fewer errors than older adults (a lexical-status asymmetry). The lexical-status asymmetry also occurred for response onset times but not for output durations (an onset–output asymmetry). All 3 asymmetries were predicted under the transmission deficit hypothesis (D. G. MacKay & D. M. Burke, 1990) but contradict theories such as general slowing that cannot explain why aging affects some types of information processing more than others.
Memory in elderly people
- The Handbook of Memory Disorders (2 nd ed
, 2002
"... Memory difficulty is one of the most common complaints of older adults (e.g. Hertzog & Dixon, 1994), so the study of age-related changes in memory function is motivated by practical as well as theoretical considerations. This chapter reviews the major empirical findings in memory and aging resea ..."
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Cited by 3 (1 self)
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Memory difficulty is one of the most common complaints of older adults (e.g. Hertzog & Dixon, 1994), so the study of age-related changes in memory function is motivated by practical as well as theoretical considerations. This chapter reviews the major empirical findings in memory and aging research, with particular emphasis on recent work. In order to provide a contemporary context for understanding and evaluating the many results, we first summarize four major theoretical approaches to understanding memory and aging. At the end of the paper we will spell out the theories more fully, and discuss the extent to which each theory is able to accommodate current findings. The four theoretical approaches are a decline in processing speed, reduced processing resources, age-related inhibitory deficits, and decreased cognitive control. The slowing of behavior in old age is widely accepted and well documented (Birren, 1965; Salthouse, 1991, 1996). The basic notion is that decreased speed of mental processing underlies many if not all age-related cognitive deficits, either directly (i.e. behavior is slow and inefficient) or indirectly by disrupting the timing of a complex sequence of mental operations. Within this framework, then, age-related decrements in memory performance are not attributed to
