Kemper, S. (1987). Syntactic complexity and elderly adults' prose recall. Experimental Aging Research, 13(1-2), 47-52.

Kemper, S.

1987

Kemper, S. (1987). Syntactic complexity and elderly adults' prose recall. Experimental Aging Research, 13(1-2), 47-52.

geen

Elderly adults in their 70s and 80s and middle-aged adults in their 40s and 50s recalled a series of paragraphs made up of single-clause sentences and sentences with right-branching or left-branching embedded or subordinate clauses. Overall, the middle-aged adults recalled 65% of the propositions regardless of syntactic form. While the elderly adults recalled 43% of the propositions from the single-clause sentences, they recalled 60% of the propositions from the right-branching clauses but only 22% of the propositions from the left-branching clauses. These results, in conjunction with prior research on elderly adults' production and imitation of complex syntactic constructions, demonstrate age-related changes in syntactic processing.

This results support the hypothesis that elderly adults have an impairment of their ability to recall left-branching syntactic constructions with only a single level of embedding or subordination. The elderly adults recalled fewer propositions, regardless of level, from single-clause and control sentences than did the middle-aged adults.

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