Direct and Indirect Speech Interpretation by Older Adults

Ellen, L.T.B. (2016) Direct and Indirect Speech Interpretation by Older Adults. Bachelor's Thesis, Artificial Intelligence.

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Abstract

This study investigates the interpretation of direct speech (Monkey said: "You get the ball") and indirect speech (Monkey said that I get the ball) in older adults (aged 65 -95). Children interpret direct speech less accurately than indirect speech and recent work (Köder and Maier (2016) has suggested that this may be because direct speech requires more working memory capacity and more inhibitory control. If this explanation is correct, we expect older adults, who are known to have fewer cognitive resources, to also show problems interpreting direct speech. 24 Dutch speaking older adults performed a referent-selection task, a Stroop task and a Digit Span task. We found that direct speech is interpreted less accurately than indirect speech by older adults. No relation with the Stroop task or the Digit span task was found. We discuss the results in comparison with earlier results of children (4;0-11;0) and young adults (18-61).

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Degree programme:	Artificial Intelligence
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2018 08:11
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2018 08:11
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/13828

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