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Drifting through Basic Subprocesses of Reading: A Hierarchical Diffusion Model Analysis of Age Effects on Visual Word
Eva Froehlich1, Johanna Liebig1, Johannes C Ziegler2
1Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität BerlinBerlin, Germany; Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität BerlinBerlin, Germany; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Freie Universität BerlinBerlin, Germany.
Older adults show slower reading subprocesses, especially at sublexical and phonological levels. However, high-performing older readers excel in orthographic and lexico-semantic processing, suggesting age impacts reading differently based on skill.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Reading is a complex cognitive process crucial for independence in older adults.
- Previous research on age-related reading decline shows mixed results, often focusing on single subprocesses.
- Understanding age effects across all reading subprocesses is vital for cognitive health in aging.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically investigate the impact of age on four core reading subprocesses: sublexical, orthographic, phonological, and lexico-semantic.
- To differentiate age-related changes in decision threshold, non-decision time, and information uptake speed.
- To explore performance variations within older adults by distinguishing high and low performing readers.
Main Methods:
- Utilized hierarchical diffusion modeling on data from 1,807 participants (384 young, 1,423 old).
- Administered four decision tasks targeting specific reading subprocesses.
- Analyzed response times, accuracy, and their distributions to model cognitive processes.
Main Results:
- Older adults exhibited longer non-decision times and more conservative decision thresholds.
- High-performing older readers surpassed younger adults in orthographic and lexico-semantic information uptake speed.
- A general age-related disadvantage was found in sublexical and phonological processing for older adults.
Conclusions:
- Age-related reading disadvantages may stem from temporal sampling and activation/inhibition inefficiencies.
- Cognitive modeling reveals distinct age effects across different reading subprocesses.
- Interventions could target specific subprocesses to support reading in aging populations.
