Language in the aging mind and brain

Most of my research focuses on language across the lifespan, and on the ways that aging affects how language is processed in the mind and brain. There is a tacit assumption that any such age-related changes are negative, yielding declines in older adults’ language processing. This notion is largely informed by concomitant age-related changes to (neuro-)biology, such as declines in memory, processing speed, attention, and perception. Indeed, much of my work has aimed at investigating how changes to memory (and its neurobiological substrates) may explain changes in language, such as increases in word-finding difficulties and tips-of-tongue. Similarly, we have found evidence that age-related declines in working memory (the ability to hold information, such as a phone number, in mind for a short period of time) and in processing speed can lead to difficulty with the processing of grammar and of sentences, especially when the sentences are relatively long and complex.

While researching the causes for language declines is certainly important, both at a basic scientific level as well as with regards to potentially improving the lives of individuals, I am just as much interested in those aspects of language that either do not change is people grow older, or that might even show age-related improvements. This (ironically?) relatively young area of research in turn often draws on the positive aspects of aging, namely age-related increases in experience, knowledge, and skill.
In recent years, we have, for example, found that not all words are equally likely to yield word-finding difficulties in aging – words that are related to motor functions (e.g., kick, hammer) appear to be relatively preserved even in old age.
In another study, which we are currently writing up, older adults appear to be faster than younger adults at producing irregular plural forms (e.g., oxen, mice, geese – though the study was done in German, where such words occur much more frequently), especially for rather uncommon words. It appears that one reason for these – quite surprising! – improvements might be lifelong increases in experience with irregular words. In fact, we found that those older adults who read a lot show are particularly fast at producing irregular plural forms, compared to younger adults and compared to their age mates who read less.

While much of this work is still ongoing, the preliminary results of several studies are promising, and point to exciting research in the years ahead.

Relevant research (including the studies mentioned above):