Date of Award

8-24-1995

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Thomas Petros

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the amount of cognitive capacity expended by young and older adults of high and low verbal ability in response to various passage characteristics utilizing a secondary task procedure. The primary task was reading narrative and expository passages while the secondary task was responding to tones which sounded periodically.Young and older subjects of high and low verbal ability were assigned to either a 600 msec tone delay or no-tone control condition. All subjects were given a simple reaction time control task. All subjects read 5 narrative and 5 expository passages presented one idea unit at at time on a computer screen at their natural reading rate. Subjects were administered a cued recall test as a measure of comprehension. Subjects in the tone condition responded to secondary tones that were sounded on idea units of high and low importance.The results indicated that prose processing required more cognitive capacity usage in older than younger adults. Verbal ability was also found to interact with age in cognitive capacity usage with older low verbal subjects producing longer secondary tone latencies than either older high verbal or younger low verbal subjects.The results are discussed in terms of a diminished processing capacity and cognitive slowing hypothesis in the reduction of cognitive capacity.

Download

Share

COinS