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The impact of domain-general cognitive load on language processing in the aging brain
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Poster D99 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Sandra Martin1, Merle Schuckart2,3, Jonas Obleser2,3, Gesa Hartwigsen1,4; 1Max Planck Institut for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 2Department of Psychology, University of Lübeck, Germany, 3Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism, University of Lübeck, Germany, 4Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany
Healthy aging is accompanied by a myriad of cognitive changes. Due to the largely intact system of semantic memory in healthy aging, language processing is typically not associated with strong age-related decline. However, changes have been reported on the word, sentence, and discourse level when processing becomes cognitively demanding (Kemper & Anagnopoulos, 1989; Obler & Pekkala, 2008; Peelle, 2019). A central question is to what extent domain-specific cognitive resources remain available in aging when concurrent executive demands increase. To this end, the current study explores the impact of a dual-task paradigm on language comprehension in healthy young and older adults. Data collection for this project is currently ongoing and results will be presented at the conference. So far, 32 healthy older adults (mean age = 71.4, SD = 6.4, range 61-85 years, mean MMSE = 28.2 points) have participated in the project and we are currently testing healthy young adults (planned n = 30, age range 18-40 years). Participants complete one experimental session of a self-paced reading paradigm followed by a short neuropsychological assessment. The reading paradigm consists of tasks blocks where participants read short newspaper articles (n = 6, average length of 300 words) and answer comprehension questions at the end of each text. Self-paced reading is either performed in isolation (two task blocks) or paired with a competing n-back task which uses a 1-back and 2-back design on the words’ font color (two task blocks each). Moreover, to assess executive functions in isolation, participants also perform two task blocks for each n-back level based on the color of rectangles. Thus, participants complete a total of ten task blocks during the experimental session. Afterwards, general verbal intelligence is assessed via the German version of the spot-the-word test. Further, in older adults, the MMSE is assessed to exclude possible cognitive impairments. Performance is measured via word-level reading speed and accuracy on text comprehension questions and the n-back task. Linear mixed models will be used to analyze the effect of the dual-task design on reading speed and accuracy and a possible interaction with age group. While we expect that both age groups are affected by the enhanced cognitive demand of the dual-task design as evident by slower reading times and reduced accuracy, older adults might show a stronger decline already at the 1-back level compared with young adults. Furthermore, we plan to assess the effect of the dual-task design on word predictability. To this end, surprisal scores will be used at four distinct time scales. An interaction of cognitive load and surprisal rates on reading times and accuracy as well as a possible moderation by age group will be analyzed using mixed models. Overall, our findings will reveal the impact of increasing cognitive load on domain-specific resources during language comprehension in the aging brain. Moreover, our results will demonstrate how language predictions are modulated by increasing cognitive demands in healthy young and older adults.
Topic Areas: Control, Selection, and Executive Processes, Speech Perception