Adult age differences in judgments of semantic fit

• Published in: Applied psycholinguistics Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 135 - 143
• Main Authors: LITTLE, DEBORAH M., PRENTICE, KRISTEN J., WINGFIELD, ARTHUR
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.03.2004
• Subjects: Adult Learning; Adults; Age differences; Aging; Aging (Individuals); Associative Learning; Cognitive ability; Collocations; Comprehension; English; English language; Goodness of Fit; Individual Differences; Long term memory; Memory; Native Language; Native Speakers; Neighborhood; North American English; Older Adults; Older people; Semantics; Semiotics; Sentences; Short Term Memory; Stimuli; Studies; Undergraduate Students; Verbal Learning; Vocabulary Development; Word Lists; Young adults; United States > US; Chicago Illinois
• ISSN: 0142-7164; 1469-1817
• DOI: 10.1017/S0142716404001079

A total of 130 young adults and 173 older adults gave goodness of fit ratings for sets of word alternatives for 123 English sentence frames. Word alternatives were semantically plausible in all cases but varied in the likelihood of their occurrence within the sentence frames. Adding support to the general belief that vocabulary and language knowledge are well preserved in normal aging, our results showed generally high agreement in goodness of fit ratings by the young and older adults. Differences that did occur appeared to be due to cohort differences in word usage and interests rather than underlying cognitive function. We suggest that this similarity in semantic judgments may help to explain why adult age differences in comprehension and memory for sentences are generally smaller than age differences for other examples of episodic memory.