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Age-related deficits in auditory confrontation naming
Brenda Hanna-Pladdy1, Hyun Choi
1Landon Center on Aging, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. bhpladdy@kumc.edu
Psychology and Aging
|August 4, 2010
Summary
Older adults struggle with object naming, especially action sounds. Multisensory cues offer some improvement, but auditory naming remains more challenging for them than visual naming.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience of aging
- Human perception
Background:
- Object naming is crucial for communication.
- Aging affects cognitive functions, including object naming.
- Sensory processing changes with age.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare object naming accuracy and speed in older and younger adults.
- To investigate the impact of auditory, visual, and multisensory stimuli on object naming.
- To identify age-related differences in sensory modality performance for object naming.
Main Methods:
- Participants: older and younger adults.
- Task: Naming manipulable objects presented via auditory, visual, and multisensory stimuli.
- Measures: Accuracy and reaction time for object naming.
Main Results:
- Older adults were less accurate and slower in object naming across all conditions.
- Action sounds impaired naming more than pictures or audiovisual stimuli for all participants.
- Older adults showed specific deficits in auditory naming, with limited improvement from multisensory cues.
Conclusions:
- Age-related deficits exist in object action naming.
- Auditory confrontation naming may be a more sensitive indicator of age-related cognitive decline than visual naming.
- Multisensory interventions may offer partial compensation for age-related naming impairments.
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