PSY 402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Speech Perception, Prefrontal Cortex, Cadency

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 402
• Professor: Paul Finlayson

Document Summary

The use of language involves a wide range of cognitive functions including comprehension, memory, and decision making. The majority of researchers believe that the average healthy older adult does not suffer significant losses in the ability to use language. Older adults with normal age related vision read at slower rates compared to younger adults. Changes in hearing and speech perception have the potential to influence the ability to comprehend spoken language. In using written language, older adults may experience deficits in retrieval that can lead to spelling errors. Slower cognitive processes may also have an effect on the complexity of grammatical structures. Neuron imaging evidence suggests older adults compensate for deficits in one area of the brain by recruiting alternative brain regions in the processing of speech. Older adults activate the right hemisphere of the brain when processing speech, a reversal of the left hemisphere dominance in younger adults. Older adults also increase activation in frontal regions more.