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Updated: May 28, 2026
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An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing
Published on: October 25, 2019
Age differences in resolving anaphoric expressions during reading
Matthew C Shake1, Elizabeth A L Stine-Morrow
1Department of Psychology, St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY 14778, USA. mshake@sbu.edu
Summary
Older adults reading comprehension relies more on context for resolving pronoun references. Younger adults process pronoun expectation violations faster, regardless of context, while older adults benefit from situational grounding in discourse.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Reading comprehension involves linking current information to prior text using anaphoric expressions.
- Anaphor processing, especially violations of expectations, offers insights into semantic representation and referent retention.
- Eye-tracking studies can reveal real-time reading patterns and cognitive processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate age-related differences in processing anaphoric expectancy violations during reading.
- To examine the role of discourse context and prior disambiguation in anaphor resolution for younger and older adults.
- To understand the temporal dynamics of semantic representation and referent instantiation in reading.
Main Methods:
- Three eye-tracking experiments were conducted with younger and older adult participants.
- Participants read passages containing local expectancy violations related to anaphoric expressions.
- Gaze duration on anaphors was measured to assess processing time and expectancy violation detection.
Main Results:
- Younger adults detected and resolved expectancy violations at the anaphor, irrespective of context.
- Older adults detected violations primarily when sentences were embedded in discourse context.
- Prior disambiguation reduced reprocessing for older adults but did not eliminate early processing effects for either age group.
Conclusions:
- Anaphor resolution is a serial process where context does not fully prevent local feature activation.
- Older adults utilize discourse context for situational grounding, aiding earlier antecedent access.
- Older readers are more prone to reprocess context for effective anaphor resolution.
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