Inference comprehension during reading: influence of age and education in normal adults.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of age and education on inferential comprehension from written texts in normal individuals.


METHODS
A total of 224 normal adults were stratified into nine groups according to age (young: 18-39 years, adults: 40-59 years, and elderly: 60-79 years) and educational level (low ≤4 years, medium: 5-8 years and high >8 years) and were evaluated through the battery La gestion de l'implicite (Implicit Information Management Test) to determine the ability to make inferences through different types of questions: explicit, logical, distractor, pragmatic and others.


RESULTS
The elderly showed worse performance for total score and distractor questions. Regarding educational level, all groups differed on explicit, logical, distractor questions, and on total test score. Subjects with high schooling performed better on pragmatic inferences and others.


CONCLUSIONS
Age influence on the comprehension of inferences may be due to difficulties in attention and executive functions. The strong effect of education can be explained by the interaction of inferential abilities with other cognitive functions such as working memory, vocabulary span, as well as world knowledge.
Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Marcela Lima
ML
Silagi
Department of Physiotherapy, Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Vivian Urbanejo
VU
Romero
Department of Physiotherapy, Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Leticia Lessa
LL
Mansur
Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Marcia
M
Radanovic
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult