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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology of Language
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1334788
This article is part of the Research Topic Discourse, Conversation and Argumentation: Theoretical Perspectives and Innovative Empirical Studies, Volume III View all 10 articles

Age-related Changes in Connected Speech Production: Evidence from Eye-tracking in the Culturally Adapted Picture Description Task

Provisionally accepted
Hyeri Lee Hyeri Lee 1Yoomi Choi Yoomi Choi 2Jee Eun Sung Jee Eun Sung 1*
  • 1 Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 2 Department of Media Interaction Design, Graduate School of Design, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Purpose: Age-related changes in connected speech production remain a subject of debate, yielding inconsistent findings across various tasks and measures. This study aimed to investigate the effects of aging on picture description tasks using two types of pictures: a standardized picture (the Beach picture) and a culturally and linguistically modified picture tailored for Korean speakers (the Han River picture).Method: Twenty-four young adults and 22 older adults participated in two picture description tasks while their eye movements were recorded. Word-level linguistic variables were used to assess informativeness (Correct Information Units per minute) and productivity (noun and verb counts per utterance) of connected speech production. Eye-movement measures were employed to evaluate realtime cognitive processing associated with planning connected speech (pre-speech fixation counts and durations; eye fixations before the speech onset of each utterance).The findings revealed age-related declines in linguistic measures, with older adults exhibiting decreased CIUs per minute and smaller counts of nouns and verbs per utterance. Age-related changes in eye movement measures were evident in that older adults displayed longer pre-speech fixation duration. Unlike younger adults, older adults exhibited higher pre-speech hus, Previous res fixation counts on the Han River picture compared to the Beach picture, suggesting cognitive challenges in performing the task that requires producing more words and detailed descriptions.These results seem to affirm that aging is associated with reduced informativeness and productivity of connected speech, as well as a decline in cognitive processing efficiency.

    Keywords: age-related changes1, connected speech2, picture description tasks3, Eye tracking4, cultural adaptation5

    Received: 07 Nov 2023; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lee, Choi and Sung. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jee Eun Sung, Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

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