Age-related differences in referential production: A multiple-measures study.

Abstract

Contemporary research on aging has provided mixed evidence for whether older adults are less effective than younger adults at designing and delivering spoken utterances. However, most of these studies have focused on only specific aspects of this process. In addition, they tend to vary significantly in terms of the degree of complexity in their chosen stimuli or task. The present study compares younger and older adults’ performance using a referential production paradigm involving simple everyday objects. We varied referential context such that a target object was either unique in its category (e.g., one shirt), or was accompanied by a same-category object (e.g., two shirts). We evaluated whether speakers’ descriptions provided listeners with sufficient information for identification, and whether speakers spontaneously adapt their speech for different addressee types (younger adult, older adult, automated dialogue system). A variety of measures were included to provide a comprehensive perspective on adults’ performance. Interestingly, the results revealed few or no age differences in measures related to production performance (speech onset latency, speech rate, and fluency). In contrast, consistent differences were observed for measures related to descriptive content, both in terms of informativity and variability in lexical selection: Older adults not only provided more information than necessary for referential success (e.g., superfluous modifiers), but also exhibited greater variability in their selection of modifiers. The results show that, although certain aspects of the production process are well-preserved across the adult lifespan, meaningful age-related differences can still be found in simple referential tasks with everyday objects.

Real-time communicative perspective taking in younger and older adults.

“…To what extent do studies of referential communication provide evidence for patterns of decline that have been suggested in the broader literature on aging? To date, the most relevant work has focused on language production (e.g., Bortfeld, Leon, Bloom, Schober, & Brennan, 2001;Healey & Grossman, 2016;Horton & Spieler, 2007;Hupet, Chantraine, & Nef, 1993;Kemper, Othick, Warren, Gubarchuk, & Gerhing 1996;Kemper, Vandepute, Rice, Cheung, & Gubarchuk, 1995;Long et al, 2018;Saryazdi, Bannon, & Chambers, 2019). Studies have shown that, whereas younger adults seem to readily tailor their referential expressions based on the knowledge state of their addressees, older adults exhibit little adaptation (e.g., Horton & Spieler, 2007;Kemper et al, 1995Kemper et al, , 1996.…”

The pressure to communicate efficiently continues to shape language use later in life

“…On the other hand, the ageing brain is capable of remarkable plasticity, which may make older adults (with a lifetime of language experience) better equipped to adopt effective production strategies based on available cognitive resources 37,38,39,40 . Recent work suggests that individual differences in response to ageing may account for divergent linguistic outcomes: While some older adults are indistinguishable from younger adults in perspective-taking 11 , fluency 41,42 , and ambiguity avoidance 43 , others display marked decline in the same areas 44,33,6 .…”

The pressure to communicate efficiently continues to shape language use later in life

“…On the other hand, the ageing brain is capable of remarkable plasticity, which may make older adults (with a lifetime of language experience) better equipped to adopt effective production strategies based on available cognitive resources [37][38][39][40] . Recent work suggests that individual differences in response to ageing may account for divergent linguistic outcomes: While some older adults are indistinguishable from younger adults in perspective-taking 11 , fluency 41,42 , and ambiguity avoidance 43 , others display marked decline in the same areas 6,33,44 .…”