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Age differences in word finding in discourse and nondiscourse situations
1Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Psychology and Aging
|September 1, 1993
Summary
Older adults show age-related declines in discourse word finding, independent of fluency. This highlights the need to study word-finding challenges in discourse for better communication understanding.
Area of Science:
- Neurolinguistics
- Cognitive Psychology
- Gerontology
Background:
- Word-finding difficulties are common in aging.
- Previous research often uses word fluency tasks, which may not fully capture discourse challenges.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate age-related differences in word finding during discourse (video description) versus non-discourse (word fluency) tasks.
- To determine if age effects on discourse word finding are independent of word fluency performance.
Main Methods:
- 90 healthy adults completed a video description task and category fluency tasks.
- Measures included accuracy and uncertainty in labeling for discourse, and correct responses for fluency.
Main Results:
- Age differences were observed in discourse labeling accuracy and uncertainty, and in fluency task performance.
- Shared variance existed between discourse and fluency tasks.
- Crucially, age-related variance in discourse word finding was independent of word fluency performance.
Conclusions:
- Age impacts word finding in discourse, beyond general fluency.
- Discourse-level analysis is essential for understanding word-finding deficits in aging.
- Findings suggest distinct cognitive processes underlie discourse and fluency word finding.