The research proposed investigates adult age differences and similarities in the processing of words, sentences, and paragraphs, with the long-term objective of increasing our understanding of the memory and language difficulties experienced by many elderly individuals. Four series of studies are outlined, all sharing the aim of differentiating those aspects of memory activation that change during aging from those that do not. In all four series, inferences about memory and language processes are based on the patterns of priming observed in item recognition, lexical decision, and sentence verification tasks. The first series investigates the rate of spread of activation among related concepts in memory. This series focuses on both pre-experimentally formed relations (e.g., ANIMAL-DOG) and on newly learned associations that result from studying sentences.
The specific aims are to determine whether there are adult age differences in the rate at which activation spreads from one concept to another in long-term memory and, secondarily to test the hypothesis that there are adult age differences in the effortful, but not the automatic components of such activation. The second series focuses on the patterns of memory activation that occur during language processing, with the aim of determining whether there are adult age differences in the patterns or time course of activation as people comprehend language. By presenting probe item recognition tests while people read paragraphs, the studies examine the time course of activation of both antecedents and antecedent propositions by anaphors, and the patterns of activation that occur as people comprehend ambiguous sentences. The third series is concerned with possible age differences in the memory structures that are stored away in long-term memory as a result of having read a passage.
The aim i s to determine whether elderly people are as sensitive to paragraph structure as are young adults. The fourth series compares associative memory as assessed by priming (a measure of memory without awarenesss) with associative memory as it is assessed by recognition accuracy and recall (measures of memory with awareness).
The aim i s to test the hypotheses that priming reveals smaller age differences, and taps a different form of memory than that tapped by recognition accuracy and recall.
| Howard, D V; Fry, A F; Brune, C M (1991) Aging and memory for new associations: direct versus indirect measures. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 17:779-92 |
| Howard, D V; Howard Jr, J H (1989) Age differences in learning serial patterns: direct versus indirect measures. Psychol Aging 4:357-64 |
| Howard, D V; Shaw, R J; Heisey, J G (1986) Aging and the time course of semantic activation. J Gerontol 41:195-203 |
