Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 5, 2026
06:48
Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published on: June 25, 2019
Differential age effects on lexical ambiguity resolution mechanisms
Chia-Lin Lee1, Kara D Federmeier
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61820, USA. clee26@illinois.edu
Psychophysiology
|December 24, 2010
Summary
Older adults show altered brain responses when processing ambiguous words, indicating potential declines in semantic selection abilities with normal aging. However, high verbal fluency may preserve young-like processing patterns.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Lexical ambiguity resolution involves multiple neurocognitive subsystems.
- Normal aging can affect cognitive processing, including semantic selection.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) are useful for studying neural dynamics of language processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how normal aging impacts neurocognitive processing of lexical ambiguity.
- To compare ERP responses of older adults to homographs in different contextual conditions versus young adults.
Main Methods:
- Comparison of ERPs in older adults to homographs versus unambiguous words in congruent sentences and syntactic prose.
- Analysis of N400 and frontal negativity components of ERPs.
- Correlation of findings with verbal fluency in older adults.
Main Results:
- Older adults showed N400 effects similar to young adults in congruent sentences, indicating context-incongruent sense activation.
- A decline in frontal negativity was observed in older adults in semantically neutral contexts, suggesting reduced recruitment of neural resources for semantic selection.
- Older adults with high verbal fluency exhibited ERP patterns similar to young adults.
Conclusions:
- Normal aging may lead to reduced neural resource recruitment for challenging semantic selection tasks.
- Lexical ambiguity processing in older adults is affected by both semantic and syntactic context.
- High verbal fluency in older adults may compensate for age-related declines in cognitive processing.
More Related Videos
04:30An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing
Published on: October 25, 2019
09:01A Method for Investigating Age-related Differences in the Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Control Networks Associated with Dimensional Change Card Sort Performance
Published on: May 7, 2014
Related Concept Videos
01:27Language 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.
01:24Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
A revisionist approach to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development has brought new insights that challenge and reinterpret his established ideas. Piaget proposed that the formal operational stage, emerging in adolescence, represents the culmination of cognitive maturity. During this stage, individuals are said to develop abstract thinking, engage in systematic problem-solving, and show a form of egocentrism, believing others are as preoccupied with their behavior as they are themselves.
01:27Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age
Age-related pharmacokinetic changes are extensively documented, but understanding age-related pharmacodynamic alterations is relatively limited. This knowledge gap can be partly attributed to the complexity of developing appropriate measures of drug responses compared to bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations.Most information regarding age-related differences in human pharmacodynamics originates from cross-sectional studies. However, these studies assume that observed mean...
01:22Language 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...
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...
02:55Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who are...
01:16Interference and Decay
Forgetting is a complex cognitive phenomenon influenced by several factors, among which interference and decay are particularly prominent. These processes explain why individuals often struggle to retrieve specific information from memory, leading to lapses in recall that can be observed in everyday situations.
Interference occurs when competing memories hinder the retrieval of particular information. It can be classified into two types: proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive...
Interference occurs when competing memories hinder the retrieval of particular information. It can be classified into two types: proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive...