Dual Tasks Costs to Adults' Language Production

双重任务对成人语言产生的成本

• 批准号: 7076812
• 负责人: SUSAN J. KEMPER
• 金额: $ 25.52万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-06-15 至 2010-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7076812
• 关键词: age difference; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; cognition; data collection methodology /evaluation; human subject; language; neural information processing; perceptual maskings; performance; psycholinguistics; psychological tests; psychometrics; psychomotor tracking; reading; sensory signal detection; speech; stimulus /response; stimulus interval

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed experiments will advance our understanding of how aging affects language production by using dual task procedures to assess the costs of language production to young and older adults. Moment-to-moment accuracy of pursuit-rotor tracking will be studied as an indicator of moment-to-moment processing demands of language production. Experiment 1 will establish baselines for tracking accuracy and compare task priorities of young and older adults engaged in rotor tracking while orally responding to thought-provoking questions. In Experiment 2, young and older adults' tracking accuracy will be monitored as they engage in a variety of language production tasks ranging from rote repetition of the alphabet, to counting backwards, to reading sentences and prose, and spontaneous speech (responding to thought-provoking questions). In order to provide a more fine grained assessment of the moment-to-moment cognitive costs of language production, in Experiments 3 and 4, continuous records of tracking accuracy will be synchronized and time-locked to a continuous record of language production while young and older adults speak or read aloud. The speech signal will be segmented to mark the onset/offset of sentences and clauses. Average tracking accuracy, will then be computed for these segments, yielding time-on-task measurement of tracking accuracy that correspond to critical speech "events" such as different types of embedded clauses. Average tracking accuracy is expected to decrease with sentence and clause complexity. In Experiment 5, tracking accuracy will be monitored while participants engage in a controlled production task that separates sentence planning from plan implementation and sentence production. The central hypothesis is that language production is costly to older adults who must draw upon cognitive reserve capacity in order to respond to dual task demands. In demanding situations, e.g., producing a complex sentence, older adults' cognitive reserve will be insufficient. As a result, their control over tracking will deteriorate, resulting in decreased accuracy. As linguistic task demands increase, older adults' speech will erode, first showing a reduction in speed, then a loss of fluency more generally, and finally a loss of grammatical complexity and propositional content.

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的实验将通过使用双任务程序来评估年轻人和老年人语言产生的成本，从而促进我们对衰老如何影响语言产生的理解。将研究追踪转子的瞬时精度，作为语言产生的瞬时处理需求的指标。实验1将建立跟踪精度的基线，并比较年轻人和老年人在口头回答发人深省的问题时从事转子跟踪的任务优先级。在实验2中，年轻人和老年人的跟踪准确性将被监测，因为他们从事各种语言生产任务，从死记硬背的字母表重复，倒计时，阅读句子和散文，和自发的讲话（回答发人深省的问题）。为了提供一个更细粒度的评估的时刻到时刻的认知成本的语言生产，在实验3和4中，跟踪准确性的连续记录将同步和时间锁定的语言生产的连续记录，而年轻人和老年人说话或大声朗读。语音信号将被分段以标记句子和子句的起始/偏移。平均跟踪准确度，然后将计算这些段，产生跟踪准确度的任务时间测量，对应于关键的语音“事件”，如不同类型的嵌入式子句。平均跟踪准确度预计会随着句子和子句的复杂性而降低。在实验5中，跟踪精度将被监测，而参与者从事一个控制生产任务，分离句子规划计划的执行和句子生产。核心假设是，语言生产是昂贵的老年人谁必须利用认知储备能力，以应对双重任务的要求。在苛刻的情况下，例如，说一个复杂的句子，老年人的认知储备会不足。结果，它们对跟踪的控制将恶化，导致精度降低。随着语言任务需求的增加，老年人的语言能力会逐渐减弱，首先表现为速度下降，然后是更普遍的流利性丧失，最后是语法复杂性和命题内容的丧失。