title: Disruption of reference in aging.
abstract: A homogeneous sample of normal adults living in a religious order in a study of age effects on reference as a cohesive device in discourse production and comprehension. Narrative and procedural discourse were examined across various levels of complexity and stimulus/response requirements. Results indicate that significant ambiguity of reference emerges in the younger elderly group (age 64-76) in comparison to the middle-aged group (age 27 to 55), and increases markedly in the older elderly group (age 77-92). Related impairments of comprehension and cognition were also observed. These findings are interpreted to be general features of linguistic variation with advancing age. Communicative consequences of ambiguous reference are discussed.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement