Abstract
There is considerable evidence that listeners’ understanding of a spoken sentence need not always follow from a full analysis of the words and syntax of the utterance. Rather, listeners may instead conduct a superficial analysis, sampling some words and using presumed plausibility to arrive at an understanding of the sentence meaning. Because this latter strategy occurs more often for sentences with complex syntax that place a heavier processing burden on the listener than sentences with simpler syntax, shallow processing may represent a resource conserving strategy reflected in reduced processing effort. This factor may be even more important for older adults who as a group are known to have more limited working memory resources. In the present experiment, 40 older adults (Mage = 75.5 years) and 20 younger adults (Mage = 20.7) were tested for comprehension of plausible and implausible sentences with a simpler subject-relative embedded clause structure or a more complex object-relative embedded clause structure. Dilation of the pupil of the eye was recorded as an index of processing effort. Results confirmed greater comprehension accuracy for plausible than implausible sentences, and for sentences with simpler than more complex syntax, with both effects amplified for the older adults. Analysis of peak pupil dilations for implausible sentences revealed a complex three-way interaction between age, syntactic complexity, and plausibility. Results are discussed in terms of models of sentence comprehension, and pupillometry as an index of intentional task engagement.
Highlights
Given the ease with which the meaning of a spoken sentence is ordinarily understood, it is easy to overlook the number and complexity of the operations that underlie this success
Our primary interest is the implications for processing effort of listeners’ alternate treatments of implausible sentences in particular, we show in Table 3 mean pupillary responses associated with general comprehension accuracy across age and stimulus conditions
As we discovered in this analysis, the pattern of the pupillary responses to these conditions was a complex one, carried primarily by a three-way interaction in which the pupillary response, affected by whether a lexico-syntactic based or plausibility based interpretation was given by the participant, was moderated by the syntactic complexity of the stimulus sentence and participant age
Summary
Given the ease with which the meaning of a spoken sentence is ordinarily understood, it is easy to overlook the number and complexity of the operations that underlie this success. Adult Aging and Sentence Comprehension of these operations and age-related declines in speed of processing, executive function, and working memory resources (Hasher et al, 1991; Salthouse, 1994; Salthouse and Meinz, 1995; McCabe et al, 2010), understanding everyday spoken language is among the best preserved of cognitive abilities in adult aging (Wingfield and Stine-Morrow, 2000) This general success, is challenged when older adults are tested for comprehension and recall of sentences that express their meaning with complex syntax that draws heavily on working memory resources (Carpenter et al, 1994; DeCaro et al, 2016). We consider the role of shallow processing as a partial answer to older adults’ relative success in interpreting the meaning of a sentence, and how comprehension strategies may draw differentially on cognitive effort
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