The nature and emergence of lexical difficulties in aging adults

老年人词汇困难的性质和出现

• 批准号: 1940980
• 负责人: Michael Ullman
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Georgetown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-15 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940980&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: nature; emergence; lexical; difficulties; aging

As people get older, they have increasing difficulty remembering words. For example, we might have trouble recalling the name of a tool that we need or the first name of a new neighbor. These problems can be common and frustrating and can impact one’s work personal life. Surprisingly, the nature and causes of these language declines in healthy aging are still not understood. This research examines the types of word difficulties we experience with aging, when they are likely to appear, and why they occur. In addition to explaining these declines in healthy aging, such research may lead to a better understanding of age-related memory disorders together with potential strategies for alleviating the deficits. The first objective of this research is to rigorously characterize what types of lexical difficulties emerge during aging, and when, by testing 250 adults ranging in age from 30 to 79 years. All participants will be given language tasks designed to assess word learning and use, while controlling for potential differences among participants, such as those in education, socioeconomic status, and age at which participants learned the words being tested. The second objective of the research is to find the causes of word-finding declines in aging. Increasing evidence suggests that learning words is dependent on the hippocampus, a brain structure known to underlie memory more generally (e.g., where you put your keys). Because the hippocampus shrinks dramatically with age, this should also affect memory for words. To test this explanation, MRI scans of the hippocampus will be conducted to see if shrinkage of the hippocampus maps to word finding declines. If hippocampal declines explain word finding difficulties in aging, they may also explain other age-related cognitive deficits. High school, undergraduate, and graduate students will be trained, furthering the educational impacts of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

随着年龄的增长，人们记单词的困难越来越大。例如，我们可能很难回忆起我们需要的工具的名称或新邻居的名字。这些问题可能是常见的和令人沮丧的，可以影响一个人的工作和个人生活。令人惊讶的是，健康老龄化中这些语言下降的性质和原因仍然不清楚。这项研究探讨了我们随着年龄的增长所经历的单词困难的类型，它们可能出现的时间以及它们发生的原因。除了解释健康老龄化的这些下降外，这些研究还可能导致更好地理解与年龄相关的记忆障碍以及缓解这些缺陷的潜在策略。本研究的第一个目标是严格的特点是什么类型的词汇困难出现在老化过程中，以及何时，通过测试250名年龄从30岁到79岁的成年人。所有参与者都将接受旨在评估单词学习和使用的语言任务，同时控制参与者之间的潜在差异，例如受教育程度，社会经济地位和参与者学习测试单词的年龄。这项研究的第二个目的是找出年龄增长导致词汇发现能力下降的原因。越来越多的证据表明，学习单词依赖于海马体，海马体是一种已知的更普遍的记忆基础的大脑结构（例如，你把钥匙放在哪里）。由于海马体随着年龄的增长而急剧萎缩，这也会影响对单词的记忆。为了验证这一解释，将对海马体进行MRI扫描，以观察海马体的萎缩是否与单词识别能力的下降有关。如果海马体的衰退可以解释衰老中的单词查找困难，那么它们也可以解释其他与年龄相关的认知缺陷。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。