Age-related Decline in Case-Marker Processing and its Relation to Working Memory Capacity
- 주제(키워드) Aging , Canonicity of word order , Case-marker processing , Syntactic complexity , Working memory capacity
- 발행기관 OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
- 발행년도 2017
- URI http://www.dcollection.net/handler/ewha/000000147160
- 본문언어 영어
- Published As http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbv117
초록/요약
Objectives: Purposes of the current study were to investigate whether age-related decline emerged in a case-marker assignment task (CMAT) and to explore the relationship between working-memory (WM) capacity and case-marker processing. Method: A total of 121 individuals participated in the study with 62 younger adults and 59 elderly adults. All were administered a CMAT that consisted of active and passive constructions with canonical and noncanonical word-order conditions. A composite measure of WM tasks served as an index of participants' WM capacity. Results: The older group performed worse than the younger group, and the noncanonical word order elicited worse performance than the canonical condition. The older group demonstrated greater difficulty in case-marker processing under the canonical condition and passive construction. Regression results revealed that age, education, and sentence type were the best predictors to account for performance on the CMAT. Discussion: The canonicity of word order and passive construction were critical factors related to decline in abilities in a case-marker assignment. The combination of age, education, and sentence type factors accounted for overall performance on case-marker processing. Results indicated the crucial necessity to find a cognitively and linguistically demanding condition that elicits aging effects most efficiently, considering language-specific syntactic features.
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