Understanding performance on the search-for-answer comprehension speed task : delineating determinants, age effects, and complex relations with cognitive resources
| dc.contributor.author | MacDonald, Stuart Warren Swain | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-08-14T22:33:22Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-08-14T22:33:22Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 1998 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 1998 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Psychology | |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Science M.Sc. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Recent empirical findings (Hultsch et al., 1998) ·demonstrated the central importance of comprehension speed as a mediator of episodic memory performance. However, as comprehension speed represents a complex amalgam of cognitive abilities, the Hultsch et al. (1998) findings contradict a general resource account of cognitive performance mediation. The primacy purpose of this thesis was to more closely examine characteristics of the Search-for-Answer comprehension speed measure used in the Hultsch et al. comprehension model. Specifically, this investigation examined performance on the Search-for-Answer comprehension speed task in an attempt to better understand age differences, predictors of age differences, and predictors of overall task performance. A cross-sectional sample of 501 community-dwelling mature adults (337 women and 164 men) between the ages of 54 and 84 years (M = 68.06, SD= 7.18) provided cornplete data on all cognitive measures. These participants were members of the Victoria Longitudinal Study, an ongoing longitudinaJ study utilizing 3 year retest intervals to investigate cognitive aging. In addition, a young comparison cross-sectional samlple of 97 university students (52 women and 45 men) between the. ages of 17 and 36 yesars (M = 23.35, SD= 4.91) completed all relevant cognitive measures. All participants completed art extensive battery of cognitive tests including measures of perceptual speed, semantic speed, working memory, and episodic memory. Both the Search-for-Answer comprehension speed task and the Reading Comprehension Speed task represented dependent measures of interest. Results indicated that marked age differences in Search-for-Answer comprehension speed latency and accuracy performance exist in favour of younger age groups. Further, these age differences are accentuated as a function of Search-for-Answer passage characteristics. More cognitively taxing passage characteristics are associated with diminished Search-for-Answer performance. Interestingly, these results indicated that age differences and cognitively taxing passage characteristics may themselves be a function of available processing resources. Hierarchical prediction models revealed that semantic speed represented the most influential predictor of total Search-for-Answer latency variance with working memory accounting for the most accuracy variance. Conversely, perceptual speed proved to be the best indicator of age-related latency and accuracy variance. Based on these findings, both task specific and general speed influenced Search-for-Answer performance. The more cognitively specific semantic speed and working memory measures represented important components of overall comprehension speed performance, whereas the general perceptual speed measure was closely related to age differences in comprehension speed performance. These findings support both the Hultsch et al. (1998) comprehension model findings as well as Salthouse's (1996b) processing speed theory of cognitive aging. | |
| dc.format.extent | 157 pages | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/18794 | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | en_US |
| dc.title | Understanding performance on the search-for-answer comprehension speed task : delineating determinants, age effects, and complex relations with cognitive resources | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
Files
Original bundle
1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
- Name:
- MacDonald_Stuart_MSc_1998_745468.pdf
- Size:
- 49.08 MB
- Format:
- Adobe Portable Document Format