TY - JOUR
T1 - Pronoun Reference and Aging
AU - Kahn, Helen J.
AU - Till, Robert E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Preparation of this article was supported by Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec while the first author was a postdoctoral fellow at the La-boratoire Théophile Alajouanine, Centre hospitalier Côte-des-Neiges, Mon-tréal (Québec).
Funding Information:
Support for this article was provided by Sigma Xi, the Research Society, and a doctoral research grant from the University of North Dakota Graduate School.
PY - 1991/1/1
Y1 - 1991/1/1
N2 - We investigated whether an age-related deficit occurs for pronoun-reference resolution. Young (ages 19-31) and older (ages 60-74) adults read stories varying in length and selected the antecedent noun for sentences that contained information that was expected, neutral, or unexpected with respect to prior knowledge. The qualitative factor (Expectedness) produced an age-related effect for accuracy of noun choice but the quantitative factor (Memory Load or the distance between noun and pronoun) was equivalent for all subjects. Additionally, older adults took longer to read the text than the young, although there was no interaction with age. It is argued that expectedness of information may be more relevant for pronoun-reference processing rather than memory load alone in older adult readers.
AB - We investigated whether an age-related deficit occurs for pronoun-reference resolution. Young (ages 19-31) and older (ages 60-74) adults read stories varying in length and selected the antecedent noun for sentences that contained information that was expected, neutral, or unexpected with respect to prior knowledge. The qualitative factor (Expectedness) produced an age-related effect for accuracy of noun choice but the quantitative factor (Memory Load or the distance between noun and pronoun) was equivalent for all subjects. Additionally, older adults took longer to read the text than the young, although there was no interaction with age. It is argued that expectedness of information may be more relevant for pronoun-reference processing rather than memory load alone in older adult readers.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/0039216141
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/0039216141#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1080/87565649109540505
DO - 10.1080/87565649109540505
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0039216141
SN - 8756-5641
VL - 7
SP - 459
EP - 475
JO - Developmental Neuropsychology
JF - Developmental Neuropsychology
IS - 4
ER -