Aging and Language Production.

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

Pomona College, Oxford, England.

Published: January 2004

Experimental research and older adults' reports of their own experience suggest that the ability to produce the spoken forms of familiar words declines with aging. Older adults experience more word-finding failures, such as tip-of-the-tongue states, than young adults do, and this and other speech production failures appear to stem from difficulties in retrieving the sounds of words. Recent evidence has identified a parallel age-related decline in retrieving the spelling of familiar words. Models of cognitive aging must explain why these aspects of language production decline with aging whereas semantic processes are well maintained. We describe a model wherein aging weakens connections among linguistic representations, thereby reducing the transmission of excitation from one representation to another. The structure of the representational systems for word phonology and orthography makes them vulnerable to transmission deficits, impairing retrieval.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2293308PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01301006.xDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

language production
8
aging
5
aging language
4
production experimental
4
experimental older
4
older adults'
4
adults' reports
4
reports experience
4
experience ability
4
ability produce
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!