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Abstract

Behavior

An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing

Published: October 25th, 2019

DOI:

10.3791/60417

1School of English for Specific Purposes, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2Institute of Language and Brain Science, School of Translation Studies, Qufu Normal University, 3School of European Languages and Cultures, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 4School of Asian and African Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Abstract

Previous studies have found that older adults have greater difficulties in processing syntactically complex sentences than younger adults. However, the exact regions where the difficulties arise have not been fully identified. In this study, a maze task was implemented to investigate how older adults and younger adults differentially processed two types of sentences with different levels of syntactic complexity, namely subject relative clauses and object relative clauses. Participants were asked to choose between two alternatives at each segment of the sentences. The task required participants to engage in a strictly incremental mode of processing. The reading times for each segment were recorded, allowing the quantification of the difficulty of sentence reading. The task allowed us to identify the exact locations of the processing difficulty and thus facilitate a more accurate assessment of the age-related decline in sentence processing. The results indicate that the effect of ageing was found mainly at the head nouns, but not at other regions of the sentences, a finding which suggests that the maze task is an effective method to identify the exact location of the ageing effect on sentence processing. The implications of this experimental paradigm for investigating the effect of ageing on sentence processing are discussed.

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Keywords Sentence Processing

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