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Effects of age, working memory, and word order on passive-sentence comprehension: evidence from a verb-final language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2017

Jee Eun Sung ,
Jae Keun Yoo ,
Soo Eun Lee  and
Bora Eom
Jee Eun Sung*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
Jae Keun Yoo
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
Soo Eun Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
Bora Eom
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Jee Eun Sung, PhD., Associate Professor, Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Education Building A-306, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemoon-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Phone: +82 10 3286 7243; Fax: +82 2 3277 2123. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Background:

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of working-memory (WM) capacity on age-related changes in abilities to comprehend passive sentences when the word order was systematically manipulated.

Methods:

A total of 134 individuals participated in the study. The sentence-comprehension task consisted of the canonical and non-canonical word-order conditions. A composite measure of WM scores was used as an index of WM capacity.

Results:

Participants exhibited worse performance on sentences with non-canonical word order than canonical word order. The two-way interaction between age and WM was significant, suggesting that WM effects were greater than age effects on the task.

Conclusions:

WM capacity effects on passive-sentence comprehension increased dramatically as people aged, suggesting that those who have larger WM capacity are less vulnerable to age-related changes in sentence-comprehension abilities. WM capacity may serve as a cognitive reserve associated with sentence-comprehension abilities for elderly adults.

Keywords

working-memory capacityagingsentence comprehensioncanonicity of word order
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 29 , Issue 6 , June 2017 , pp. 939 - 948
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2017 

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