Age-Related Effects on Language Production During Selective and Divided Attention Conditions: Implications for...

Area of Science:

• Neurolinguistics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Spoken language production is complex and can be affected by cognitive load and environmental factors.
• Aging influences cognitive abilities, potentially impacting language production in older adults.
• Aphasia, a language disorder resulting from brain damage, can further complicate spoken communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of dual-task and background noise conditions on the spoken language production of neurologically healthy adults (NHA).
• To compare the language production of individuals with mild aphasia to their age-matched NHA peers under various cognitive and auditory conditions.

Main Methods:

• Study 1: Assessed NHA across different age groups (young/midlife, early older, late older) in sustained, selective, and divided attention tasks (story retell, tone discrimination) under silent, noise, and dual-task conditions.
• Study 2: Employed a case series approach to examine four individuals with aphasia (PWA) compared to their NHA counterparts.
• Measured language informativeness, lexical diversity, errors, speech rate, disfluencies, and cognitive task performance (accuracy, response time), alongside perceived effort and stress.

Main Results:

• Late older adults exhibited less efficient language production and more disfluencies than younger groups, with varied lexical diversity.
• Dual-task conditions decreased language informativeness and increased lexical-phonological errors for all NHA groups.
• Individuals with aphasia generally showed impaired language production compared to NHA, with three experiencing interference and one showing benefit under attentionally demanding conditions.

Conclusions:

• Spoken language production is influenced by aging and attentional demands (selective and divided attention) in NHA.
• Attentional demands can disproportionately affect error production in PWA, though some may benefit.
• Individualized assessment is crucial for understanding the impact of communication environments on PWA.