Brennan R. Payne|Sarah Grison|Xuefei Gao|Kiel Christianson|Daniel Morrow|Elizabeth A. L. Stine?Morrow
Aging and individual differences in binding during sentence understanding: Evidence from temporary and global syntactic attachment ambiguities
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
report investigation aging individual differences binding information sentence understanding agecontinuous sample adults n91 ranging 18 81 years age read sentences relative clause could attached high head noun np1 attached low modifying prepositional phrase np2 eg son princess scratched himselfherself public humiliated attachment site relative clause ultimately indeterminate eg maid princess scratched public humiliated wordbyword reading times comprehension eg scratched measured series mixedeffects models fit data revealing 1 average np1attached sentences harder process comprehend np2attached sentences 2 average effects independently moderated verbal working memory capacity reading experience effects pronounced oldest participants 3 readers average allocate extra time resolve global ambiguities though older adults higher working memory span findings discussed relation current models lifespan cognitive development working memory language experience role prosodic segmentation strategies reading collectively data suggest aging brings differences sentence understanding differences may depend independent influences verbal working memory capacity reading experience