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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Fit to speak
— physical fitness is associated with reduced language decline in healthy ageing | | Author(s) | K Segaert, S J E Lucas, C V Burley |
| Journal title | arXiv:1801.01441v1 [stat.AP], 4 January 2018 |
| Pages | 19 pp |
| Full text* | https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.01441 Or contact: Dr Katrien Segaert, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT. k.segaert@bham.ac.uk |
| Annotation | Healthy ageing is associated with decline in cognitive abilities such as language. Aerobic fitness has been shown to ameliorate decline in some cognitive domains, but the potential benefits for language have not been examined. Researchers at the Universities of Birmingham, Leuven (Belgium) and Agder (Norway), and King's College London investigated the relationship between aerobic fitness and tip-of-the-tongue states. These are among the most frequent cognitive failures in healthy older adults and occur when a speaker knows a word but is unable to produce it. Segaert et al found that healthy older adults indeed experience more tip-of-the-tongue states, and that when they do, they have access to less information about the word's sound structure, compared to young controls. Importantly, higher aerobic fitness levels decrease the probability of experiencing tip-of-the-tongue states in healthy older adults, over and above the effect of age. This is the first demonstration of a link between aerobic fitness and language functioning in healthy older adults. The research was funded by a Wellcome Trust ISSF Award. (RH) (OFFPRINT). |
| Accession Number | CPA-180227001 A |
| Classmark | CD: DA: DB: DF: 49 * |
| *Online access to the full text may require a payment |
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information about this article, and many others, can be found on the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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