Subjective and Objective Measures of Age-related Changes in Language Processing

The subjective assessment of cognitive abilities that older adults make does not always correlate with results of objective testing. Research in the field of memory has shown that often complaints do not reflect real age-related decline. Very few studies have been devoted to the correlation of subjective and objective measures of language processing, although all of them have so far revealed significant dependencies, additional empirical research is required. To examine the subjective estimates of cognitive processing, a special questionnaire was developed containing statements about age-related changes in both memory and language functions, questions with a quantitative response to the proper name retrieval and the frequency of the “tip of the tongue" effect. As objective tests, we used inferential (by definition) and referential (by image) naming tasks. 17 healthy native Russian speakers aged 50 to 83 years participated in the experiment. The сorrelation analysis showed a significant correlation between a lower subjective assessment in question with quantitative response concerning remembering people and their names and slower naming times in both tasks.