Presupposition processing declines with age

Abstract

The present study investigates the processing of presuppositions across the life span and extends the findings of the only available study on presupposition processing and typical aging by Domaneschi and Di Paola (J Pragmat 140:70–87, 2019). In an online and offline task, we investigate the impact of cognitive load during the processing and recovery of two presupposition triggers—definite descriptions and change-of-state verbs—comparing a group of younger adults with a group of older adults. The collected experimental data show that (1) presupposition recovery declines during normal aging, (2) presupposition recovery of change-of-state verbs is more cognitively demanding for older adults than the recovery of definite descriptions, and lastly (3) presupposition recovery for the change-of-state verb begin is more demanding than the change-of-state verb stop. As of today, few works have directly investigated presupposition processing across the life span. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work revealing that cognitive load directly impacts the recovery of presuppositions across the life span, which in turn suggests an involvement of verbal working memory.

Young Adults’ Inferential Reading Skills – Recognising Implicit and Unstated Content in Italian L1 and English L2

“…However, while the literature focuses on the inferential skills of L2 learners -and those of populations with less-than-optimal cognitive capabilities (e.g. children: Bill et al, 2016;Sbisà, 2007;elders: Domaneschi and Di Paola, 2019;Reinecke et al, 2022;Atypical Development individuals: Bishop and Adams, 1992;Gough et al, 2018) -it has so far neglected other populations like L1 speakers and Typical Development (TD) young adults; similarly scant are contrastive studies on L1 Italian and L2 English, studies examining inferential skills on extended stretches of discourse, and research investigating a range, rather than a single type, of inferential skills. We thus conducted a study to investigate how L1 and L2 TD adults perform in a reading comprehension task targeting various types of meanings.…”

Factives at hand: When presupposition mode affects motor response.

“…A line of research concerns the previously mentioned topic of accommodation, that is, accepting the presuppositional content that has not been part of the common ground prior utterance as true. Recent experimental investigations indicate that various settings where the presupposed content is not present in the context and has to be inferred by the hearer incurs extra processing costs (electroencephalography [EEG] study by Domaneschi et al, 2018; self-paced reading study by Domaneschi & Di Paola, 2018; Reinecke et al, 2021; eye-tracking study by Schwarz & Tiemann, 2012). However, there is also evidence that accommodated presuppositions are integrated rapidly (behavioral results of Domaneschi et al, 2018; Domaneschi & Di Paola, 2018; Reinecke et al, 2021; EEG study of Masia et al, 2017; eye-tracking studies of Romoli et al, 2015; Schwarz, 2014).…”

“…Recent experimental investigations indicate that various settings where the presupposed content is not present in the context and has to be inferred by the hearer incurs extra processing costs (electroencephalography [EEG] study by Domaneschi et al, 2018; self-paced reading study by Domaneschi & Di Paola, 2018; Reinecke et al, 2021; eye-tracking study by Schwarz & Tiemann, 2012). However, there is also evidence that accommodated presuppositions are integrated rapidly (behavioral results of Domaneschi et al, 2018; Domaneschi & Di Paola, 2018; Reinecke et al, 2021; EEG study of Masia et al, 2017; eye-tracking studies of Romoli et al, 2015; Schwarz, 2014). Another topic is projection.…”