Age-Related Differences in Word Recognition Task according to the Interference Types: Evidence from Eye-Tracking

Objectives:There is considerable controversy with respect to language processing in the elderly. The purpose of the study was to investigate age-related differences in word recognition tasks according to interference types with Eye-tracker. Methods: A total of 46 participants (24 young and 22 elderly adults) participated in the study. A word recognition task and an online eye-tracking analysis were used. The stimuli consisted of 80 Korean nouns with four types: target, phonologically related objects to the target, semantically related objects to the target, and unrelated objects. Each critical trial display included four types. Participants were asked to select one of the pictures after the target was auditorily presented. Results: The elderly group had lower accuracy and slower reaction time than the young group. There were significant interactions between the group and time-window. The young group fixated the target longer than the elderly group in the time window of 1,000-1,800 ms. According to the proportion data of the interference type, there were significant interactions between types and time-window. Both groups fixated the phonologically related picture longer than semantically related picture or unrelated picture in 1,0001,400 ms time-window. Conclusion: Elderly adults demonstrated delayed processing when compared with younger adults, whereas age-group differences did not emerge as a function of the interference types.There was aging-related decline in online processing of the word recognition abilities, but differential effects by the interference types did not efficiently discriminate the groups, indicating that their online processing abilities to inhibit phonologically and semantically related foils may be intact, although elderly adults suffered from slowed processing.