Age differences in the effects of conceptual integration training on resource allocation in sentence processing

Abstract

This research examined age differences in the accommodation of reading strategies as a consequence of explicit instruction in conceptual integration. In Experiment 1, young, middle-aged, and older adults read sentences for delayed recall using a moving-window method. Readers in an experimental group received instruction in making conceptual links during reading while readers in a control group were simply encouraged to allocate effort. Regression analysis to decompose word-by-word reading times in each condition isolated the time allocated to conceptual processing at the point in the text at which new concepts were introduced, as well as at clause and sentence boundaries. While younger adults responded to instructions by differentially allocating effort to sentence wrap-up, older adults allocated effort to intrasentence wrap-up and on new concepts as they were introduced, suggesting that older readers optimized their allocation of effort to linguistic computations for textbase construction within their processing capacity. Experiment 2 verified that conceptual integration training improved immediate recall among older readers as a consequence of engendering allocation to conceptual processing.

Figure 1

Resource allocation to new concepts, and to intrasentence and sentence boundary wrap-up as a function of session and instructional condition for younger, middle-aged and older adults (CIT=conceptual integration training).