Electrophysiological differences in older and younger adults' anaphoric but not cataphoric pronoun processing in the absence of age-related behavioural slowdown.

ABSTRACT: This study reports on an event-related potentials experiment to uncover whether per-millisecond electrophysiological brain activity and analogous behavioural responses are age-sensitive when comprehending anaphoric (referent-first) and cataphoric (pronoun-first) pronouns. Two groups of French speakers were recruited (young n = 18; aged 19-35 and older adults n = 15; aged 57-88) to read sentences where the anaphoric/cataphoric pronouns and their potential referents either matched or mismatched in gender. Our findings indicate that (1) the older adults were not less accurate or slower in their behavioural responses to the mismatches than the younger adults, (2) both anaphoric and cataphoric conditions evoked a central/parietally distributed P600 component with similar timing and amplitude in

SUBMITTER: Arslan S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7648082 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature