Effects of age and language proficiency in the processing of morphologically complex words

该项目研究了复合名词的词汇表征和处理（例如，金鱼）在言语产生中。健康的成年说话者和失语症患者都接受了测试。我们的数据表明，老年健康的发言者（65岁以上）做比年轻的发言者（18-35岁）在复合名词的命名。这些数据是在符合的假设，在老年人中的单词查找困难，导致缺乏获得言语产生的单词形式表示。然而，它仍然是未解决的是否以及以何种方式减少或减速的语义处理影响老年人的言语产生。这一点将在项目的继续进行中加以审查。虽然我们没有获得任何经验证据的一个具体的变化的潜在的形态音系表示的化合物与年龄，化合物的表征结构在词元水平仍然是一个有争议的问题-特别是老年健康的扬声器和个人与失语症。针对这些研究问题，本研究将在不同的实验范式中考察复合靶的口语图片命名。此外，学习新的（不熟悉的）化合物（例如，* 钢琴鱼）将被审查（词汇化）。在以化合物为目标的图片命名任务中，将评估句法（语法性别）和语义效果。首先，将测试性别标记的限定素对化合物产生的影响。第二，语义效果的化合物和简单的名词（化合物的成分）的生产将在连续（累积语义）图片命名范式进行测试，这些数据将补充语义效果的接受语义分类任务中的连续范式。将测量反应时间和错误。此外，连续脑电图（EEG）将被提取，以检查在语音产生的潜在过程。此外，本研究还将评估非言语认知功能（注意控制和抑制）对言语产生的影响，并对以下研究问题进行测试：1）复合词是如何词汇存储的，以及在言语产生过程中是如何被提取的？2)新的（不熟悉的）复合词的词汇习得是如何进行的？3)语义和词汇功能如何影响健康老年人和失语症患者的复合提取？4)非言语注意控制过程在言语产生中的作用是什么？总之，该项目旨在更好地理解言语产生中单词提取的功能过程，以及非言语认知功能的作用。到目前为止，几乎没有研究在一个实验项目中评估所有这些方面，其结果可用于改善失语症中单词查找困难的现有治疗方法，并开发方法来训练无失语症的老年人群的单词查找。

The project examines the lexical representation and processing of compound nouns (e.g., goldfish) in speech production. Both, healthy adult speakers and individuals with aphasia are tested. Our data show that older healthy speakers (65 + years) do worse than younger speakers (18-35 years) in the naming of compound nouns. The data are in line with the hypothesis that word-finding difficulties in the elderly result from deficient access to word-form representations in speech production. However, it is still unresolved whether and in which way reduced or decelerated semantic processing affects speech production in the elderly. This will be examined in the continuation of the project. While we did not obtain any empirical evidence for a specific change of the underlying morpho-phonological representation of compounds with age, the representational structure of compounds at the lemma level is still a matter of debate – especially for older healthy speakers and individuals with aphasia. With regard to these research questions, spoken picture naming of compound targets will be investigated in different experimental paradigms. In addition, learning of new (unfamiliar) compounds (e.g., *piano fish) will be examined (lexicalization). In picture-naming tasks with compounds as targets, both syntactic (grammatical gender) and semantic effects will be assessed. First, effects of gender-marked determiner primes on compound production will be tested. Second, semantic effects on the production of compounds and simple nouns (constituents of compounds) will be tested in the continuous (cumulative semantic) picture-naming paradigm, and these data will be complemented by semantic effects in a receptive semantic categorization task in the continuous paradigm. Reaction times and errors will be measured. In addition, the continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) will be extracted, in order to examine the underlying processes in speech production. Furthermore, the impact of non-verbal cognitive functions (attentional control and inhibition) in speech production will be assessed.The following research questions are tested: 1) How are compounds lexically stored and how are they accessed during speech production? 2) How does the lexical acquisition of new (unfamiliar) compounds work? 3) How do semantic and lexical functions affect compound retrieval in healthy older and aphasic speakers? 4) What is the role of non-verbal attentional control processes in speech production?In summary, the project aims at a better understanding of the functional processes underlying word retrieval in speech production, and of the role of non-verbal cognitive functions. Until now, there are almost no studies that have assessed all of these aspects in one experimental program.The results can be used to improve existing treatment approaches for word-finding difficulties in aphasia and to develop methods to train word-finding in the aging population without aphasia.