De correr a esquecer: a quantidade de movimento dos verbos influencia o processamento léxico-semântico em indivíduos jovens e idosos sem comprometimento cognitivo?

Abstract

<p>Classically, it is considered that semantic memory remains preserved in typical aging, although changes in lexical access or in more complex linguistic processing tasks, which require manipulation of several semantic features simultaneously, can be observed. Few studies investigate the semantic processing of verbs, especially in the Portuguese language. In this context, the present study investigates whether semantic features, especially the quantity of movement, influence the performance of young and elderly people in a task of semantic similarity judgment of verbs. For this purpose, 68 cognitively healthy individuals (aged 18 to 80 years), divided into 31 young individuals (20 women, mean age 28.25 years (SD=6.69)) and 37 elderly individuals (26 women, mean age 66 years (SD=5.39)), performed a semantic judgment task, based on pairs of verbs with and without semantic association between them, organized into blocks of low, medium, and high movement. A two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in reaction time (dependent variable) regarding age and quantity of movement, controlled by the independent variables: frequency, familiarity, and specificity. Our results indicate that the quantity of movement is the main variable influencing the semantic processing of verbs in this task, regardless of age. We also found that there is an increase in response time according to age.<br></p>