Dual Tasks Costs to Adults' Language Production

双重任务对成人语言产生的成本

基本信息

批准号：
7237897
负责人：
SUSAN J. KEMPER
金额：
$ 24.76万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2005
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2005-06-15 至 2010-05-31
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed experiments will advance our understanding of how aging affects language production by using dual task procedures to assess the costs of language production to young and older adults. Moment-to-moment accuracy of pursuit-rotor tracking will be studied as an indicator of moment-to-moment processing demands of language production. Experiment 1 will establish baselines for tracking accuracy and compare task priorities of young and older adults engaged in rotor tracking while orally responding to thought-provoking questions. In Experiment 2, young and older adults' tracking accuracy will be monitored as they engage in a variety of language production tasks ranging from rote repetition of the alphabet, to counting backwards, to reading sentences and prose, and spontaneous speech (responding to thought-provoking questions). In order to provide a more fine grained assessment of the moment-to-moment cognitive costs of language production, in Experiments 3 and 4, continuous records of tracking accuracy will be synchronized and time-locked to a continuous record of language production while young and older adults speak or read aloud. The speech signal will be segmented to mark the onset/offset of sentences and clauses. Average tracking accuracy, will then be computed for these segments, yielding time-on-task measurement of tracking accuracy that correspond to critical speech "events" such as different types of embedded clauses. Average tracking accuracy is expected to decrease with sentence and clause complexity. In Experiment 5, tracking accuracy will be monitored while participants engage in a controlled production task that separates sentence planning from plan implementation and sentence production. The central hypothesis is that language production is costly to older adults who must draw upon cognitive reserve capacity in order to respond to dual task demands. In demanding situations, e.g., producing a complex sentence, older adults' cognitive reserve will be insufficient. As a result, their control over tracking will deteriorate, resulting in decreased accuracy. As linguistic task demands increase, older adults' speech will erode, first showing a reduction in speed, then a loss of fluency more generally, and finally a loss of grammatical complexity and propositional content.

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的实验将通过使用双任务程序来评估年轻人和老年人语言产生的成本，从而加深我们对衰老如何影响语言产生的理解。将研究追踪转子跟踪的瞬时准确性，作为语言生成的瞬时处理需求的指标。实验 1 将建立跟踪准确性的基线，并比较参与转子跟踪的年轻人和老年人的任务优先级，同时口头回答发人深省的问题。在实验 2 中，年轻人和老年人在从事各种语言产生任务时，将监测他们的跟踪准确性，这些任务包括死记硬背字母表、倒数、阅读句子和散文以及自发演讲（对思想做出反应）。引发疑问）。为了对语言产生的即时认知成本提供更细粒度的评估，在实验3和实验4中，跟踪准确性的连续记录将被同步并时间锁定到年轻时语言产生的连续记录。老年人大声说话或朗读。语音信号将被分段以标记句子和从句的开始/偏移。然后，将为这些片段计算平均跟踪精度，从而产生与关键语音“事件”（例如不同类型的嵌入子句）相对应的跟踪精度的任务时间测量。平均跟踪准确度预计会随着句子和子句的复杂性而降低。在实验 5 中，当参与者参与受控生产任务时，将监控跟踪准确性，该任务将句子规划与计划实施和句子生产分开。中心假设是，语言产生对于老年人来说代价高昂，他们必须利用认知储备能力来应对双重任务需求。在要求较高的情况下，例如说出复杂的句子，老年人的认知储备会不足。结果，他们对跟踪的控制将会恶化，导致准确性下降。随着语言任务要求的增加，老年人的言语能力会下降，首先表现出速度下降，然后更普遍地丧失流畅性，最后丧失语法复杂性和命题内容。