Effects of Age, Speed of Processing, and Working Memory on Comprehension of Sentences With Relative Clauses
Effects of Age, Speed of Processing, and Working Memory on Comprehension of Sentences With Relative Clauses
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DOI：
10.1037/a0021837
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发表时间：
2011-06-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Tripodis, Yorghos
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Caplan, David;DeDe, Gayle;Tripodis, Yorghos
研究人员对200名参与者（19-29岁、30-49岁、50-69岁、70-90岁）进行了工作记忆、处理速度和处理带有关系从句的句子的测试。在实验一中，被试在一个逐词的、非累积的、自定进度的阅读任务中阅读四种句子类型（分裂主语、分裂宾语、主语-主语、主语-宾语），并对它们进行快速可解释性判断。在实验二中，被试阅读两种类型的句子，其中一种包含一个双中心嵌入关系从句。老年参与者的理解不太准确，除了最简单的句子外，所有句子的在线处理时间都与年龄有关，实验1中句法复杂的句子增加了。这种模式表明，年龄相关的分析和解释的效率下降。只有在实验2中，较低的加工速度和较低的工作记忆与较长的在线加工时间相关，这表明任务相关的操作与一般的加工速度和工作记忆有关。较低的工作记忆与较长的阅读时间在更复杂的句子，一致的观点，一般工作记忆是不是关键参与在线句法处理。在最苛刻的句子中，在最苛刻的点上进行更长的在线处理与更好的理解相关，这表明它反映了在某些特定情况下的有效处理。然而，老年人的理解能力较差，这表明他们较慢的在线处理反映了即使在这些点上也是低效的处理。
Two hundred participants, 50 in each of four age ranges (19-29, 30-49, 50-69, 70-90) were tested for working memory, speed of processing, and the processing of sentences with relative clauses. In Experiment 1, participants read four sentence types (cleft subject, cleft object, subject-subject, subject-object) in a word-by-word, non-cumulative, self-paced reading task and made speeded plausibility judgments about them. In Experiment 2, participants read two types of sentences, one of which contained a doubly center embedded relative clause. Older participants' comprehension was less accurate and there was age-related slowing of online processing times in all but the simplest sentences, which increased in syntactically complex sentences in Experiment 1. This pattern suggests an age-related decrease in the efficiency of parsing and interpretation. Slower speed of processing and lower working memory were associated with longer online processing times only in Experiment 2, suggesting that task-related operations are related to general speed of processing and working memory. Lower working memory was not associated with longer reading times in more complex sentences, consistent with the view that general working memory is not critically involved in online syntactic processing. Longer online processing at the most demanding point in the most demanding sentence was associated with better comprehension, indicating that it reflects effective processing under some certain circumstances. However, the poorer comprehension performance of older individuals indicates that their slower online processing reflects inefficient processing even at these points.