Young and old adults were shown simple sentences masked by visual noise. In
half of the sentences, the final word was predictable; in the other half,
it was not The older participants were able to identify the same number of
final words as the younger ones only when the intensity of the visual noise
was significantly diminished. However, the difference in the number of cor
rect identifications between predictable and unpredictable conditions was h
igher for the older observers than for the younger observers, indicating th
at older observers benefit from context more.