ADULT AGE DIFFERENCES IN COMPONENT PROCESSES OF READING

阅读组成过程中的成人年龄差异

基本信息

批准号：
3115628
负责人：
David J. Madden
金额：
$ 15.26万
依托单位：
DUKE UNIVERSITY
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
1984
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
1984-12-01 至 1992-11-30
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

The long-term objective of the experiments proposed in the present application is to investigate adult age differences in several components of reading, ranging from word identification to sentence memory. All of the proposed experiments require young and older adult subjects to make a series of choice responses regarding visually presented words and sentences. The amount of time required to make these responses is the dependent variable of primary interest. Experiments 1-4 will all involve versions of the lexical decision paradigm, which requires that subjects decide, on each trial, whether or not a visually presented "target" letter string forms a real word. In Experiment 1, each letter string will be presesnted individually, and the type of information (e.g., pronounceability versus meaning) that is sufficient for making the lexical decision will be varied. A measure of basic visual functioning, contrast sensitivity to gratings of various spatial frequencies, will also be obtained in Experiment 1, and the relationship between contrast sensitivity and word identification time will be examined. Experiments 2-4 will use the lexical decision task to investigate identification of words in the context of sentences. Experiment 2 will examine the effect of the rate of presentation of the sentence context on word identification. Experiment 3 will vary the visual quality of the target letter string. In Experiment 4, the amount of time intervening between the context sentence and the target letter string will be varied. Experiments 2-4 will also investigate the ways in which word identification is affected by both the meaning of the context sentence and the difficulty (i.e., length and familiarity) of the target word. Experiment 5 will examine subjects' ability to make decisions about whole sentences rather than individual words. Experiments 6 and 7 will investigate aspects of recognition memory for visually presented text, by measuring the time required to decide whether particular words and sentences occurred in previously presented paragraphs. The proposed experiments are designed to determine whether an age-related slowing in the speed of information processing can account for age differences in component processes of reading, and to suggest ways in which text presentation can be best adapted for older adults.

当前提出的实验的长期目标应用是调查几个组成部分的成人年龄差异阅读，从单词识别到句子记忆。所有人拟议的实验要求年轻和老年人成为有关视觉呈现的单词和句子。做出这些响应所需的时间是主要兴趣的因变量。实验1-4都将涉及词汇决策范式的版本，要求受试者在每个试验中确定是否有视觉呈现的“目标”字母字符串形成一个真实的单词。在实验1中，每个字母字符串将是单独预设和信息类型（例如，发音与含义）足以使词汇决定将变化。衡量基本视觉功能，对比度对各种空间频率的光栅的敏感性，也将是在实验1中获得以及对比度灵敏度之间的关系和单词识别时间将进行检查。实验2-4将使用研究在句子的上下文。实验2将检查速率的影响句子上下文在单词识别上的介绍。实验3 将改变目标字母字符串的视觉质量。在实验4中上下文句子和目标之间的时间介入字符串将变化。实验2-4也将调查单词识别的方式都受到的含义影响上下文句子和困难（即长度和熟悉）目标词。实验5将检查受试者做出决定的能力关于整个句子而不是单个词。实验6和7 将研究视觉上呈现的文本的识别记忆的各个方面，通过衡量决定特定单词和是否需要的时间句子发生在先前介绍的段落中。提议实验旨在确定与年龄相关的速度是否放慢信息处理速度可以解释阅读的组成过程，并提出文本的方式表现最好适合老年人。