The Complexity of Reading Revealed by a Study with Healthy Older Adults

Abstract

Aging, even when healthy, involves changes in cognitive functioning that can gradually affect the everyday activities and well-being of older people. Reading, which requires the integrity of several functions and their integration, is important to maintaining high cognitive and emotional stimulation over time. Our study aimed to investigate whether reading ability declines with aging. To explore also why reading would decline, we explored the changes in the performance of visual and attention tasks. A group of 58 neurologically healthy older people aged from 65 to 75 underwent neuropsychological assessment to investigate their global cognitive functioning, reading skills, crowding, and attention components. We found a decline in reading abilities as a function of aging (β = 0.34, p < 0.05). We did not find an increase in crowding or difficulties in visual acuity. Furthermore, we found no decline with age in tasks of simple reaction times, visuospatial attention, and other single components of attention. Interestingly, we instead found a worsening with age in the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (β = −0.26, p < 0.05), involving attention, working memory, and processing speed, which explains part of the reading decline. Our results suggest that task complexity is a fundamental aspect to account for aging changes.

Reliability and validity of a novel attention assessment scale (broken ring enVision search test) in the Chinese population

“…Males show increased activation in the left hemisphere’s inferior parietal lobule, while females show significant activation in the right hemisphere’s inferior frontal gyrus, insula, caudate, and temporal areas ( de Fockert et al, 2001 ; Boi et al, 2011 ), which may be related to the modulation by estrogen and testosterone ( Oberauer, 2019 ). Additionally, FA was not observed to be affected by gender, age and years of education in this study, which is in line with the results of the most recent application of the scale, i.e., crowding did not worsen with age ( Pegoraro et al, 2024 ), and these findings are consistent with previous studies ( Malavita et al, 2017 ; Shamsi et al, 2022 ).…”