Why Understanding of Texts Worsens with Age
Psycholinguists from the Centre for Language and Brain, HSE University, have found that to predict semantic relations between words when reading, older adults use their knowledge of the world instead of grammar more often than young adults. Reliance on the meaning of individual words instead of accurate grammar analysis allows for faster information processing, but sometimes causes misinterpretations. The study has been published by the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Psychologists and psycholinguists have been studying the phenomenon of communication misunderstandings since the 1970s. Thomas Erickson and Mark Mattson show that when asked ‘How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?’ many people mistakenly answer ‘Two’ without noticing that the question itself is incorrect: it was Noah, not Moses, who took animals on the Ark. In 2003, Fernanda Ferreira demonstrated that the stimulus sentence ‘The dog was bitten by the man’ was misinterpreted as ‘The dog bit the man’ in 25% of cases, which means that people can ignore grammatical relations between words and interpret sentences based on word semantics and their knowledge of typical real-life situations. This type of information processing is called ‘good-enough language processing’.
However, very little is known about the influence of age on text processing: whether reliance on good-enough language processing increases with age and, consequently, with a richer linguistic and life experience. HSE researchers conducted an experiment to see how people of different ages use good-enough language processing while reading. A total of 349 people took part in the study, including adolescents aged 13–17, young adults aged 20–40, and older adults aged 55 and over.
The participants were asked to read a set of stimuli sentences with subordinate participial clauses that cause numerous errors in comprehension, for instance:
1) Миша встретился со стоматологомi пожарного, пломбирующимi зубы быстро и безболезненно (Misha met the firefighter’s dentist, who filled teeth quickly and painlessly. While not obvious from the English translation, the endings of the instrumental case in the Russian original sentence signal that the participle ‘пломбирующим’ (who filled) agrees with the head noun ‘стоматологом’ (dentist)).
2) Миша встретился со стоматологом пожарногоi, потушившегоi пожар на складе (Misha met the dentist of the firefighter who had put out a fire in the warehouse. The past participle ‘потушившего’ (who had put out) agrees with the second noun ‘пожарного’ (firefighter) as they are both used in genitive case).
3) Миша встретился со стоматологомi пожарного, потушившимi пожар на складе (Misha met the firefighter’s dentist, who had put out a fire in the warehouse. Although grammatically correct, this Russian sentence reads as if the dentist, and not the firefighter, put out the fire because the noun ‘стоматологом’ (dentist) and the dependent participle ‘потушившим’ (who had put out) have endings of the instrumental case).
4) Миша встретился со стоматологом пожарногоi, пломбирующегоi зубы быстро и безболезненно (Misha met the dentist of the firefighter who filled teeth quickly and painlessly. Similarly to sentence 3 above, the grammatical structure of this sentence suggests that it is the firefighter, not the dentist, who fills teeth because both the noun ‘пожарного’ (firefighter) and the present participle ‘пломбирующего’ (who filled) are used in the Russian genitive case).
While the participles of sentences 1 and 2 agree with the nouns both grammatically (syntactically) and logically (semantically), the participles of sentences 3 and 4 depend on one of the nouns grammatically (syntactically) and on the other noun logically (semantically). The answer of ‘firefighter’ to the question ‘Who put out the fire?’ after sentence 3 shows that the participants ignored the case ending, i.e. the syntactical relation, and their replies are based on the meanings of the words and the participants’ knowledge of the world. This demonstrates that the participants use good-enough language processing.
Both adolescents and young adults appear to use good-enough language processing actively in their speech perception: they gave the incorrect reply of ‘firefighter’ to the question ‘Who put out the fire in the warehouse?’ asked after sentence 3 (in 63–68% of responses). However, older adults replied incorrectly even more often (79% of responses). Good-enough language processing, therefore, is formed in adolescence and intensifies in older adults.
According to the authors, this outcome may be due to the fact that the accumulation of world knowledge and language exposure in older adults creates stronger expectations about the content of messages and encourages older people to rely on these expectations rather than the information they actually perceive. It may also be due to an unconscious strategy to spare older adults’ limited cognitive resources for other purposes (such as verbal working memory).
The researchers also show that when respondents gave incorrect replies to the question asked after sentences 3 and 4 (which were difficult to understand), they had read those sentences faster.
Anastasiya Lopukhina, author of the article and Research Fellow of the Centre for Language and Brain, HSE University
‘It appears that good-enough language processing enables us to process information a little faster. Although it may cause misunderstandings, it seems to be economical and less time-consuming.’
Anastasiya Lopukhina
Research Fellow, Center for Language and Brain
See also:
Expedition Uses New Methods in Minority Language Studies
Researchers from HSE University’s Centre for Language and Brain, together with employees of Adyghe State University’s Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics, are conducting an expedition that is unprecedented in Russia: psycholinguistic field research into the Adyghe language and Russian-Adyghe bilingualism in a village in the Republic of Adygea.
Russian Scientists Create Biomimetic Algorithm to Find Epileptogenic Areas of the Brain
Researchers from the HSE University Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces have designed a new method for detecting diagnostic markers of epilepsy, called interictal spikes, using EEG and MEG. Capable of accounting for various errors and artefacts, this method constitutes a valuable addition to the arsenal of means for automatic analysis of electrophysiological recordings in epilepsy patients, especially when the data are noisy. Precise localisation of epileptogenic cortical structures can enhance the effectiveness of neurosurgical interventions. The study was published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
Towards Finding Practical Solutions to Socially Significant Healthcare Problems
The Centre for Language and Brain in Nizhny Novgorod started operations in September 2020. Today, it is comprised of a team of linguists - teachers and students - who are researching the relations between speech and parts of the brain. The Director of the Centre, Natalya E. Gronskaya, spoke to the HSE Look about how the neuro-linguistic laboratory appeared in Nizhny Novgorod, as well as current tasks and prospects the Centre can offer the students and the region.
Predicting Grammatical Properties of Words Helps Us Read Faster
Psycholinguists from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain found that when reading, people are not only able to predict specific words, but also words’ grammatical properties, which helps them to read faster. Researchers have also discovered that predictability of words and grammatical features can be successfully modelled with the use of neural networks. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Can the Brain Resist the Group Opinion?
Scientists at HSE University have learned that disagreeing with the opinion of other people leaves a ‘trace’ in brain activity, which allows the brain to later adjust its opinion in favour of the majority-held point of view. The article was published in Scientific Reports.
Movement Recovery after Stroke Depends on the Integrity of Connections between the Cerebral Cortex and the Spinal Cord
A team of scientists, with the first author from the HSE University, were investigating which factors are the most important for the upper limb motor recovery after a stroke. The study is published in Stroke, the world's leading journal for cerebrovascular pathology.
Brain in Space: What Happens to the Human Nervous System in Weightlessness
While Roscosmos is discussing future manned flights to Mars, NASA plans to open the International Space Station for commercial tourism, and SpaceX is testing its Starship Mars prototype, scientists are seriously concerned about the impact of prolonged stay in space on the human body. While the effects of weightlessness on bones, muscles and the vestibular system are well known, how the human brain copes with microgravity has yet to be fully examined. IQ.HSE has compiled the latest research on this topic.
Scholars Investigate How Mirror Activity Works
A team of researchers from Germany and Russia have demonstrated that long contraction of muscles in one hand increases involuntary reaction of the other one. Meanwhile, the time between muscle contractions in both hands decreases. The results of the study have been published in the paper ‘Inverse relationshipbetween amplitude and latency of physiological mirror activity during repetitive isometric contractions’ in Neuroscience.
Healthy Aging Entails Reorganization of Function in Prefrontal Brain Areas
Researchers from HSE University and York University have become the first to analyse the results of 82 functional neuroimaging studies on working memory mechanisms in different adult age groups. The meta-analyses showed that across studies the agreement of various areas of the prefrontal cortex decreases with ageing, suggesting reorganization of brain function during healthy aging. The results have been published in the paper ‘Meta-analyses of the n-back working memory task: fMRI evidence of age-related changes in prefrontal cortex involvement across the adult lifespan’.
HSE Researchers to Create a Mathematical Model of the Brain
The HSE Centre for Cognition and Decision Making together with a group of other Russian research centres is about to begin work on creating a mathematical model of the human brain. With its help scientists will be able to study the processes which take place in the brain and brain disease. It could be used for medical purposes in the future.