Centre for Policy on Ageing



Understanding unfamiliar words — the influence of processing resources, vocabulary knowledge, and age
Author(s)	Debra McGinnis, Elizabeth M Zelinski
Journal title	Psychology and Aging, vol 15, no 2, June 2000
Pages	pp 335-350
Keywords	Cognitive processes ; Mental ageing ; Young adults [20-25] ; Age groups [elderly].
Annotation	In a 2-experiement design, the authors assessed the role of age and ability in defining unfamiliar words from context. In Experiment 1, 60 adults aged 18-35 and 60 adults aged 61-96 read passages with cues to the meaning of rare words, and then defined them. Older people produced fewer components of the words' meanings, and were more likely to produce generalised interpretations of the precise meaning. In Experiment 2, 726 adults aged 30-97 selected definitions from 4 choices: the exact definition, a generalised interpretation of the exact definition, a generalised interpretation of the story, and definition-irrelevant information from the story. Over 75s selected fewer precise definitions and more generalised interpretations of the story than did younger ones. Findings suggest that older people may have special difficulties in deriving the meaning of unfamiliar words from context. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-001024211 A
Classmark	DA: D6: SD6: BB
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.