Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution and Roles of Cognitive Functions in Aging during On-line Sentence Processing

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국언어치료학회
· 수록지 정보 : 언어치료연구 / 23권 / 2호 / 9 ~ 21페이지
· 저자명 : 박영미

초록

Purpose: Older adults have difficulty processing syntactic complexity due to their declined cognitive skills. The study examined how older adults resolve temporary syntactic ambiguity during on-line sentence processing and which cognitive factors contribute to syntactic ambiguity resolution skills. Methods: Twenty-four young and 34 older adults read sentences containing Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP) attached Prepositional Phrases (PPs) via a word-by-word self-paced reading paradigm. After selecting a critical word that disambiguates syntactic structure (NP-attached PP or VP-attached PP), residual reading time of the critical word that represents PP-attachment resolution skills was calculated. In addition, neuropsychological tests were administered to measure working memory capacity (the Month Ordering and Digit Ordering Tasks), inhibition (the Stroop), alternate attention (the Trail Making Test), and set-switching skills (the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test). Then, the data were used to analyze relationship among cognitive functions and PP-attachment resolution skills. Results: Both groups required longer processing time to resolve NP-attached PP which was syntactically more ambiguous than VP-attached PP. However, older adults showed declined cognitive skills when compared with young adults. Among these cognitive skills, set-switching skills were associated with overcoming the GP effect in both age groups. Unlike young adults, older adults showed that alternating attention skills were related to resolving PP-attachment ambiguity as well. Conclusions: This study suggest that older adults require additional cognitive skills to resolve PP-attachment ambiguity as well as young adults do. Moreover, other age-related cognitive functions should be considered to understand older adults' sentence processing skills along with working memory capacity.

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