title: The effects of varying task priorities on language production by young and older adults.
abstract: The present study compared how varying task priorities affected young and older adults' language production. Both young and older adults responded to monetary incentives to vary their performance when simultaneously talking and tracking a pursuit rotor. Tracking performance improved when they were rewarded for tracking and declined when they were rewarded for talking. Both young and older adults also spoke more slowly when rewarded for tracking and more rapidly when rewarded for talking. Young produced less complex sentences when rewarded for tracking and produced more complex sentences when rewarded for talking. However, older adults did not vary their grammatical complexity as a function of monetary incentives. These results are consistent with prior studies suggesting that older adults use a simplified speech register in response to dual-task demands.
authors.affiliation: Gerontology Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA. skemper@ku.edu
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kemper
authors.forename: RaLynn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmalzried
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Herman
authors.forename: Deepthi
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mohankumar
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D012201:Reward; D013060:Speech; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult