偏题言语及其老化机制

在日常生活中,相比年轻人,老年人的话语总是更容易偏离当前话题,而且内容比较冗余,这种现象就是偏题言语的老化。语用改变假设认为是老年人沟通目标的改变导致其偏题言语的增多,该理论能够一定程度地解释在自传式话题上的偏题现象,但很难解释在不涉及沟通目标改变的任务上出现的偏题言语。抑制缺陷理论则认为老年人的偏题言语与其在抑制无关信息能力上的缺陷密切相关,该理论虽然可以解释在一般话题上出现的偏题言语,但没有将抑制在偏题言语老化现象上的作用机制阐释得很清楚。未来研究应着重探讨偏题言语的具体老化机制,以期为改善老年期的偏题言语现象提供更有效的措施。

The Aging Mechanism on Off-topic Verbosity

In everyday life, the speech of older people is more off-topic and verbose compared with young adults. The phenomenon is referred as the aging of off-topic verbosity (OTV). Pragmatic change hypothesis suggests that the change of communicative goals among the elders results in the increase of OTV. This hypothesis could explain the OTV induced by autobiographical topics, but not interpret that induced by non-autobiographical topics which does not involve change of communicative goals. Inhibition deficit theory proposes that OTV is closely related to the age-related decline in inhibiting irrelevant information, providing explanations for OTV on both autobiographical and non-autobiographical topics. However, this theory does not clearly clarify the ageing mechanism on OTV. Future research need focus on the underlying aging mechanism of OTV, so as to provide more effective intervention to resolve the social communication dilemma in older adults.