SPEECH ACCOMODATIONS BY AND TO OLDER ADULTS

在先前使用参照交际任务进行的“老年人的言语适应”的研究中，年轻人调整了他们的流利性、语义内容和句法复杂性，以适应他们伴侣的感知交流需求。老年人没有做出这样的语音调整，而且似乎在各种情况下使用了一致的语音风格，这表明，像其他研究领域一样，老年人的语音产生受到工作记忆限制，影响了他们产生复杂句法结构的能力。本研究将通过使用“在线”实验任务操纵句子产生任务的工作记忆需求来扩展这项关于老年人言语调节的研究。提出了三个系列的实验。系列1将分析语言样本，以评估并发处理需求对语言流利性、句法复杂性和语义内容的影响。基准语言样本将与参与者同时行走、轻敲食指、以复杂模式轻敲四个手指、同时收听语音和听觉喋喋不休时收集的语言样本进行比较。这些并发任务之前已经被证明会影响工作记忆任务的表现，因此，它们被预测为竞争工作记忆，进而影响语音产生。行走和敲击的速度也将在基线和同时说话的情况下进行检查。系列2将使用一个句子生成任务，该任务控制词项的选择，并检查使用一组指定的词项和生成的句子的复杂程度生成句子的延迟。计划进行三个实验：(2A)考察句子起始时间和句子复杂性作为特定词项集合大小的函数。(2B)检查由单个动词生成的句子或由多个动词生成的句子的句子起始时间和句子复杂性。(2C)使用特定词汇项目清单检查为完成简单和复杂句子框架而生成的句子的句子起始时间和句子复杂性。第三系列将使用受控句子生成任务，检查潜伏期以启动记忆句子。计划进行三个实验：(3A)考察简单句和复句的句子起始时间。(3B)考察简单句和复杂句产生过程中的句内停顿。(3C)检查语义受限和可逆句子的句子起始时间。在所有三个系列的实验中，还将考察言语能力、处理速度、工作记忆和抑制能力的个体差异。

In previous research on "Speech Accommodations by and to Older Adults" using a referential communication task, young adults adjusted their fluency, semantic content, and syntactic complexity to the perceived communication needs of their partners. Older adults did not make such speech adjustments and appeared to use a consistent speech style in a variety of situations, suggesting, like other lines of research, that older adults' speech production is constrained by working memory limitations that affect their production of complex syntactic constructions. The present proposal will extend this study of older adults' speech accommodations by using "on-line" experimental tasks manipulated the working memory demands of sentence production tasks. Three series of experiments are proposed. Series 1 will analyze language samples to assess the effects on concurrent processing demands on linguistic fluency, syntactic complexity, and semantic content. A baseline language sample will be compared to language samples collected while participants are concurrently walking, tapping their index fingers, tapping four fingers in a complex pattern, listening to concurrent speech, and listening to auditory babble. These concurrent tasks have previously been shown to affect performance on working memory tasks, hence, they are predicted to compete for working memory and, in turn affect speech production. Walking and tapping rates will also be examined in baseline and concurrent speaking conditions. Series 2 will use a sentence production task that controls the choice of lexical items and examines the latency to generate a sentence using a specified set of lexical items and the complexity of the generated sentence. Three experiments are planned: (2a) To examine sentence initiation times and sentence complexity as a function of the size of the set of specified lexical items. (2b) To examine sentence initiation times and sentence complexity for sentences generated from single verbs or for sentences generated from multiple verbs. (2c) To examine sentence initiation times and sentence complexity for sentences generated to complete simple and complex sentence frames using a specified inventory of lexical items. Series 3 will use a controlled sentence production task that examines the latency to initiate memorized sentences. Three experiments are planned: (3a) To examine sentence initiation times for simple and complex sentences. (3b) To examine intra-sentence pauses during the production of simple and complex sentences. (3c) To examine sentence initiation times for semantically constrained and reversible sentences. In all three series of experiments, individual differences in verbal ability, processing speed, working memory, and inhibition will also be examined.