DOES MEMORY CONSTRAIN UTILIZATION OF TOP-DOWN INFORMATION IN SPOKEN WORD RECOGNITION - EVIDENCE FROM NORMAL AGING

Young and elderly adults heard recorded words that had been computer-e dited from connected speech so as to be heard in isolation from their linguistic surround. Word identification was tested for words in isola tion and when heard with increasing amounts of linguistic context that had either preceded or followed them in their original utterances. Al though the elderly subjects were poorer in identifying the words in is olation compared to young adults, both age groups showed similar incre ases in correct word identification as increasing amounts of prior con text were presented. By contrast, context that followed the target wor ds was less effective for the elderly subjects than it was for the you ng. It is argued that a memory trace of the unclear stimulus must be m aintained for effective utilization of following context in a retrospe ctive analysis. The elderly subjects' relative inability to utilize fo llowing context implicates an age-related memory deficit operating at the sentence level.