Effects Of Stimulus Presentation Method On Discourse Comprehension In Healthy Elderly Adults

Objectives: Although the ability of discourse comprehension in the elderly may vary depending on the method of stimulus presentation, relevant research into this topic is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in ability of discourse comprehension in healthy elderly adults according to the discourse stimulus presentation method, and to determine whether the effects of the discourse stimulus presentation method are different depending on the question type; for example literal information or inference. Methods: Forty-eight healthy elderly adults participated in this study. To examine the ability of discourse comprehension, a recall task was used to listen to the story and answer the questions. As methods of presenting discourse stimulus, telling a story once, telling it twice, and presenting it with a picture were used. The question types consisted of the literal information (LI), text-connecting inference (TC) and gap-filling inference (GF) types. Results: First, the discourse comprehension scores were higher in telling a story twice and presenting it with a picture than in telling a story once. Second, performance of LI was the highest in telling a story twice, while performance of TC was the highest in presenting story with a picture. Third, in the case of GF, the difference in ability of discourse comprehension according to the stimulus presentation method was not significant. Conclusion: These results suggest that it is more effective to present the discourse repeatedly to improve the superficial comprehension of discourse for the healthy elderly, and visual stimulus to improve logical reasoning for connection and integration between texts.