Age-Related Changes in Sentence Production Abilities and Their Relation to Working-Memory Capacity: Evidence from a Verb-Final Language

Objectives

This study investigated the best predictor to capture age-related changes in passive-sentence production using a constrained sentence-production paradigm and explored the role of working-memory capacity in relation to the task demands of the sentence-production tasks.

Methods

A total of 60 participants participated in the study ranging in age from 21 to 86. All were administered a syntactic-priming and a sentence-completion task under either canonical or noncanonical word-order conditions.

Results

Age was significantly and negatively correlated with sentence-production tasks, and the most demanding condition with a noncanonical word order under the syntactic priming paradigm was the best predictor of aging. Working-memory capacity was significantly and positively correlated with all conditions, but the significant correlation remained only for the most demanding condition (the priming task with a noncanonical word order) after controlling for age.

Discussion

Sentence-production abilities were vulnerable to aging, and these effects manifested most clearly when the task demands were high enough to tax individuals’ cognitive capacity. Working-memory capacity partially accounted for age-related changes in sentence-production abilities.