Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Language and Cognition

Language and Cognition

Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.

Language Development

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

Non-Verbal Cues

Non-Verbal Cues

Non-verbal communication extends beyond gestures and facial expressions to include vocal elements known as paralanguage. Paralanguage consists of non-verbal vocal cues such as pitch, loudness, speech rate, pauses, and non-verbal vocalizations like laughter, sighs, and moans. These elements not only accompany speech but also provide critical emotional and contextual information.The Role of Paralanguage in CommunicationParalanguage adds depth to spoken language by conveying emotions and...

Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language

Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language

Language is a system of communication that allows the expression of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The brain processes language in both hemispheres.
Language formation and comprehension take place in the dominant hemisphere. The dominant hemisphere is responsible for understanding the meaning of spoken, written, or sign language, as well as the ability to communicate. For most people, the left hemisphere is the dominant one. The right hemisphere, then, gives tone and emotional context to the...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Putting patients at the center of kidney care transitions: PREPARE NOW, a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Contemporary clinical trials·2018

Same author

Attention resources and visible speech encoding in older and younger adults.

Experimental aging research·2004

Same author

Centrality dependence of charged-hadron transverse-momentum spectra in d+Au collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV.

Physical review letters·2003

Same author

Significance of the fragmentation region in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.

Physical review letters·2003

Same author

Severe hemolytic anemia and skin reaction in a patient treated with imatinib.

Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology·2003

Same author

[Effect of growth hormone and calcitriol on the growth plate in uremic rats].

Nefrologia : publicacion oficial de la Sociedad Espanola Nefrologia·2003

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Reliance on visible speech cues during multimodal language processing: individual and age differences.

L Thompson¹, E Garcia, D Malloy

¹Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA. thompson@nmsu.edu

Experimental Aging Research

|September 22, 2007

Summary

Older adults struggle with inhibiting irrelevant information during auditory-visual language tasks. This suggests cognitive aging impacts selective attention, affecting multimodal language processing and working memory relationships.

More Related Videos

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

Area of Science:

Cognitive psychology
Neuroscience of aging
Language processing

Background:

Multimodal language understanding involves integrating auditory and visual information.
Cognitive aging can affect various aspects of information processing, including attention and working memory.
Individual differences in working memory capacity are often linked to cognitive performance.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of inhibition in multimodal language processing across the adult lifespan.
To examine how visible speech benefits language comprehension under different processing demands.
To determine the relationship between working memory and performance in older and younger adults during language tasks.

Main Methods:

Participants completed auditory-visual language tasks with and without a strong inhibition component.
Performance measures included accuracy and reaction time.
Working memory capacity for language was assessed using standardized measures.

Main Results:

Inhibition demands led to poorer performance in older adults compared to younger adults.
Visible speech did not improve performance when inhibition was required.
Working memory did not predict performance under high inhibition conditions.
Without inhibition, age differences diminished, visible speech aided performance, and working memory predicted outcomes.

Conclusions:

A framework incorporating general information processing, working memory, and cognitive aging explains multimodal language processing.
Inhibition plays a critical role in age-related differences in multimodal language understanding.
Visible speech benefits are modulated by cognitive control demands.