title: Effects of age, working memory, and word order on passive-sentence comprehension: evidence from a verb-final language.
abstract: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of working-memory (WM) capacity on age-related changes in abilities to comprehend passive sentences when the word order was systematically manipulated.
  
  
  
  A total of 134 individuals participated in the study. The sentence-comprehension task consisted of the canonical and non-canonical word-order conditions. A composite measure of WM scores was used as an index of WM capacity.
  
  
  
  Participants exhibited worse performance on sentences with non-canonical word order than canonical word order. The two-way interaction between age and WM was significant, suggesting that WM effects were greater than age effects on the task.
  
  
  
  WM capacity effects on passive-sentence comprehension increased dramatically as people aged, suggesting that those who have larger WM capacity are less vulnerable to age-related changes in sentence-comprehension abilities. WM capacity may serve as a cognitive reserve associated with sentence-comprehension abilities for elderly adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders,Ewha Womans University,Seoul,South Korea.
authors.forename: Jee Eun
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Sung
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics,Ewha Womans University,Seoul,South Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Keun
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders,Ewha Womans University,Seoul,South Korea.
authors.forename: Soo Eun
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders,Ewha Womans University,Seoul,South Korea.
authors.forename: Bora
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Eom
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D058245:Cognitive Reserve; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D056910:Republic of Korea; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: aging; canonicity of word order; sentence comprehension; working-memory capacity