Publicación: VISUAL WORD RECOGNITION AMONG OLDEST OLD PEOPLE: THE EFFECT OF AGE AND COGNITIVE LOAD
Fecha
2022
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FRONTIERS IN AGING & NEUROSCIENCE
Resumen
DURING THE FOURTH AGE, A MARKED PHYSIOLOGICAL DETERIORATION AND CRITICAL POINTS OF DYSFUNCTION ARE OBSERVED, DURING WHICH COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE EXHIBITS A MARKED DECLINE IN CERTAIN SKILLS (FLUID INTELLIGENCE) BUT GOOD PERFORMANCE OF OTHERS (CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE). EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE DESCRIBES IMPORTANT CONSTRAINTS ON WORD PRODUCTION DURING OLD AGE, ACCOMPANIED BY A RELATIVE STABILIZATION OF SPEECH COMPREHENSION. HOWEVER, COGNITIVE CHANGES ASSOCIATED WITH ADVANCED AGING COULD ALSO AFFECT COMPREHENSION, PARTICULARLY
WORD RECOGNITION. THE PRESENT STUDY EXAMINES HOW THE VISUAL RECOGNITION
OF WORDS IS AFFECTED DURING THE FOURTH AGE WHEN TASKS INVOLVING DIFFERENT COGNITIVE LOADS ARE APPLIED. THROUGH LINEAR REGRESSION MODELS, PERFORMANCE WAS COMPARED BETWEEN TWO THIRD-AGE GROUPS AND A FOURTH-AGE GROUP ON REACTION TIME (RT) AND ACCURACY IN NAMING, PRIMING AND LEXICAL DECISION EXPERIMENTS. THE FOURTH-AGE GROUP SHOWED A SIGNIFICANT RT INCREASE IN
ALL EXPERIMENTS. IN CONTRAST, ACCURACY WAS GOOD WHEN THE TASK INVOLVED A LOW COGNITIVE DEMAND (EXPERIMENTS 1 AND 2); HOWEVER, WHEN A DECISIONAL COGNITIVE FACTOR WAS INCLUDED (EXPERIMENT 3), THE FOURTH-AGE GROUP PERFORMED SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE THAN THE YOUNGER THIRD-AGE GROUP. WE ARGUE THAT THE BEHAVIOR OBSERVED AMONG FOURTH-AGE INDIVIDUALS IS CONSISTENT WITH AN
UNBALANCED COGNITIVE CONFIGURATION, IN WHICH THE FLUID INTELLIGENCE DEFICIT
SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCES THE SPEED NECESSARY TO RECOGNIZE WORDS, INDEPENDENT OF THE COGNITIVE LOAD ASSOCIATED WITH THE TEST. IN CONTRAST, THE MAINTENANCE IN CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE IMPROVES THE ACCURACY OF THE PROCESS, STRENGTHENING
LINGUISTIC FUNCTIONALITY IN THE ADVANCED STAGES OF OLD AGE.
Descripción
Palabras clave
WORD RECOGNITION., REACTION TIME, FOURTH AGE, AGING, ACCURACY
