Sequencing, Speech Production, and Selective Effects of Aging on Phonological and Morphological Speech Errors

To test age-linked predictions of node structure theory (NST) and other theories, young and older adults performed a task that elicited large numbers of phonological and morphological speech errors. Stimuli were visually presented words containing either /p/ or /b/, and participants changed the /p/...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2004-03, Vol.19 (1), p.93-107
Main Authors: MacKay, Donald G, James, Lori E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age differences
Age Factors
Aged
Aging
Aging - physiology
Articulation (Speech)
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Processes
Developmental psychology
Errors
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Linguistics
Male
Middle Aged
Morphology
Morphology (Language)
Phonetics
Phonology
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sequences
Speech
Speech Characteristics
Speech errors
Speech production
Speech Production Measurement
Theories
Words (Phonetic Units)
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Summary:To test age-linked predictions of node structure theory (NST) and other theories, young and older adults performed a task that elicited large numbers of phonological and morphological speech errors. Stimuli were visually presented words containing either /p/ or /b/, and participants changed the /p/ to /b/ or vice versa and produced the resulting word as quickly as possible. For example, the correct response was "bunk" for the stimulus PUNK, and "ripped" for RIBBED. Consistent with NST predictions, the elicited speech errors exhibited selective effects of aging. Some error types decreased with aging. For example, young adults produced more nonsequential substitution errors (as a percentage of total errors) than older adults (e.g., intended bills misproduced as "gills"). However, other error types remained constant or increased with aging. For example, older adults produced more omission errors than young adults, especially omissions involving inflectional endings (e.g., intended ripped misproduced as "rip"). In addition, older adults exhibited special difficulties with 2 types of phonological and morphological sequencing processes.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.19.1.93