Abstract
The goal of this study was to evaluate the influence of reading habits on cerebral plasticity in the performance of a discourse comprehension task in aging. The main hypothesis was that participants with higher frequency and quality of reading habits should exhibit reduced brain activity because the task should be easier for them. two groups of native French speakers, 16 young adults and 16 elderly adults, participated in a task using the nirS (near-infrared spectroscopy) technique. They read short stories and answered true or false probes after each one. They also completed a questionnaire about their previous reading habits. The results show that the more experienced readers had higher activation in the superior left region of the prefrontal cortex while they were reading the stories but lower activation in the same region when they were retrieving the information to answer the probe. Thus, more effort is required to acquire and maintain the information needed to answer, and this effort makes it easier to give the answer. These results reinforce the hypothesis that brain plasticity is promoted by cognitive activities throughout the lifespan.
Highlights
Discourse, in both the oral and written modality, is the basis of human communication
The goal of this study is to evaluate the influence of reading habits on cerebral plasticity, as assessed by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), during a discourse comprehension task
There was no significant correlation between activity in the prefrontal cortex and reading habits when we examined the variation in HHb concentration
Summary
In both the oral and written modality, is the basis of human communication. Discourse comprehension, which may appear to be an automatic component of language, is very complex from the perspective of cerebral functioning. Like other components of cognition, discourse comprehension changes with aging. The goal of this study is to evaluate the influence of reading habits on discourse comprehension mechanisms in the aging brain. It is necessary to build a mental representation based on previous linguistic and conceptual knowledge and on the elements of the text (Kintsch, 1988). Discourse comprehension is strongly linked to many cognitive functions such as working memory, long-term memory, information processing and inference drawing (Chesneau, Jbabdi, Champagne-Lavau, Giroux, & Ska, 2007)
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