ArticleScientific reports2020
The pressure to communicate efficiently continues to shape language use later in life.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Preserved context sensitivity in language production: Lexical differentiation in older adults.Psychology and aging · 2026Article
- Human-machine interactions with clinical phrase prediction system, aligning with Zipf's least effort principle?PloS one · 2024Observational
- Noise-induced differences in the complexity of spoken language.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Language use is shaped by a pressure to communicate efficiently, yet the tendency towards redundancy is said to increase in older age. The longstanding assumption is that saying more than is necessary is inefficient and may be driven by age-related decline in inhibition (i.e. the ability to filter out irrelevant information). However, recent work proposes an alternative account of efficiency: In certain contexts, redundancy facilitates communication (e.g., when the colour or size of an object is perceptually salient and its mention aids the listener's search). A critical question follows: Are older adults indiscriminately redundant, or do they modulate their use of redundant information to facilitate communication? We tested efficiency and cognitive capacities in 200 adults aged 19-82. Irrespective of age, adults with better attention switching skills were redundant in efficient ways, demonstrating that the pressure to communicate efficiently continues to shape language use later in life.
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Registered trials
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