TY - JOUR
T1 - Age Differences in Reading Time Allocation for Propositionally Dense Sentences
AU - Stine, Elizabeth A.L.
AU - Hindman, Jennifer
N1 - Funding Information:
Cognitive deficits in later adulthood have been attributed to a reduction in processing resources (Craik & Simon, 1980). This account of age differences has been instantiated alternatively as a slowing in the rate of processing, that is, the Slowing Hypothesis (Cerella, 1990; Myerson, Hale, Wagstaff, Poon, & Smith, 1990; Salt- * This research was supported by grant R29 AGO8382 from the National Institute on Aging. We are grateful to Art Wingfield, Ed O’Brien, Susan Kemper, and Daniel Henderson for helpful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. These data were presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA, 1992. Address correspondence to Elizabeth A. L. Stine, Department of Psychology, Conant Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA, or e-stine@unhh.unh.edu.
PY - 1994/3/1
Y1 - 1994/3/1
N2 - Younger and older adults read and immediately recalled a set of sentences which varied in propositional density. Reading was self-paced and sentence reading time was measured. Older adults spent differentially more time reading the propositionally dense sentences, and although the overall recall performance of older adults was slightly poorer than that of younger adults, age differences were constant across propositional density. Consistent with the Slowing Hypothesis, an analysis of effective reading time (time spent per proposition recalled) demonstrated that older adults were spending proportionately more time to effectively encode the sentences. In addition, a relative memorability analysis (Stine & Wingfield, 1988, 1990a) suggested that the increase in propositional density did not particularly disrupt the organization of the text representation for older adults in this self-paced reading situation. This contrasts with earlier findings in a listening situation. These data provide support for the applicability of the Slowing Hypothesis to language processing, but also suggest that older adults are able to effectively allocate reading time to propositionally dense sentences in order to facilitate organizational processing.
AB - Younger and older adults read and immediately recalled a set of sentences which varied in propositional density. Reading was self-paced and sentence reading time was measured. Older adults spent differentially more time reading the propositionally dense sentences, and although the overall recall performance of older adults was slightly poorer than that of younger adults, age differences were constant across propositional density. Consistent with the Slowing Hypothesis, an analysis of effective reading time (time spent per proposition recalled) demonstrated that older adults were spending proportionately more time to effectively encode the sentences. In addition, a relative memorability analysis (Stine & Wingfield, 1988, 1990a) suggested that the increase in propositional density did not particularly disrupt the organization of the text representation for older adults in this self-paced reading situation. This contrasts with earlier findings in a listening situation. These data provide support for the applicability of the Slowing Hypothesis to language processing, but also suggest that older adults are able to effectively allocate reading time to propositionally dense sentences in order to facilitate organizational processing.
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U2 - 10.1080/09289919408251446
DO - 10.1080/09289919408251446
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84972811702
VL - 1
SP - 2
EP - 16
JO - Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition
JF - Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition
SN - 1382-5585
IS - 1
ER -