BR Buchsbaum

BT Gold

C Grady

C Whitney

CC Guo

CM Allen

D Badre

D January

DC Park

DJ Barr

E Bialystok

E Borella

E Fedorenko

E Hazeltine

E Jefferies

E Yee

EK Warrington

EM Saffran

F Pereira

FA Huppert

FH Treitz

G Pobric

GF Humphreys

IE Nagel

IG Dobbins

IJ Deary

IP Kan

J Duncan

JD Cohen

JM Rodd

JR Anderson

K Krieger-Redwood

K Patterson

KA Noonan

L Hasher

L Nyberg

LG Nilsson

M Brysbaert

M Mion

M Ramscar

M Rönnlund

MA Lambon Ralph

P Hoffman

P Verhaeghen

RJ V. D. Heide

RL Jackson

SL Thompson-Schill

ST Mueller

TA Salthouse

TK Landauer

TT Rogers

V Kuperman

WJ Heuven Van

Scientific Reports

AbstractSemantic cognition refers to the appropriate use of acquired knowledge about the world. This requires representation of knowledge as well as control processes which ensure that currently-relevant aspects of knowledge are retrieved and selected. Although these abilities can be impaired selectively following brain damage, the relationship between them in healthy individuals is unclear. It is also commonly assumed that semantic cognition is preserved in later life, because older people have greater reserves of knowledge. However, this claim overlooks the possibility of decline in semantic control processes. Here, semantic cognition was assessed in 100 young and older adults. Despite having a broader knowledge base, older people showed specific impairments in semantic control, performing more poorly than young people when selecting among competing semantic representations. Conversely, they showed preserved controlled retrieval of less salient information from the semantic store. Breadth of semantic knowledge was positively correlated with controlled retrieval but was unrelated to semantic selection ability, which was instead correlated with non-semantic executive function. These findings indicate that three distinct elements contribute to semantic cognition: semantic representations that accumulate throughout the lifespan, processes for controlled retrieval of less salient semantic information, which appear age-invariant, and mechanisms for selecting task-relevant aspects of semantic knowledge, which decline with age and may relate more closely to domain-general executive control.</jats:p

Paul Hoffman

Crossref

An individual differences approach to semantic cognition: Divergent effects of age on representation, retrieval and selection

Semantic cognition refers to the appropriate use of acquired knowledge about the world. This requires representation of knowledge as well as control processes which ensure that currently-relevant aspects of knowledge are retrieved and selected. Although these abilities can be impaired selectively following brain damage, the relationship between them in healthy individuals is unclear. It is also commonly assumed that semantic cognition is preserved in later life, because older people have greater reserves of knowledge. However, this claim overlooks the possibility of decline in semantic control processes. Here, semantic cognition was assessed in 100 young and older adults. Despite having a broader knowledge base, older people showed specific impairments in semantic control, performing more poorly than young people when selecting among competing semantic representations. Conversely, they showed preserved controlled retrieval of less salient information from the semantic store. Breadth of semantic knowledge was positively correlated with controlled retrieval but was unrelated to semantic selection ability, which was instead correlated with non-semantic executive function. These findings indicate that three distinct elements contribute to semantic cognition: semantic representations that accumulate throughout the lifespan, processes for controlled retrieval of less salient semantic information, which appear age-invariant, and mechanisms for selecting task-relevant aspects of semantic knowledge, which decline with age and may relate more closely to domain-general executive control

Hoffman, Paul

Edinburgh Research Explorer

An individual differences approach to semantic cognition:Divergent effects of age on representation, retrieval and selection

https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/60236390/HoffmanSR2018AnIndividualDifferencesApproach.pdf

An individual differences approach to semantic cognition:Divergent effects of age on representation, retrieval and selection

Abstract

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