ArticleCognitive processing2021
What is the contribution of executive functions to communicative-pragmatic skills? Insights from aging and different types of pragmatic inference.
Article in Cognitive processing, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enhancing Pragmatic Communication in Healthy Aging: A Preliminary Investigation of the Long-Term Effects of the Advanced Cognitive Pragmatic Treatment.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2026Article
- Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo): An Extension of Normative Data to Elderly Individuals.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2026Article
- Executive Functioning as a Mediator Between Digital Media Exposure and Communication Outcomes in Children and Adolescents.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
- Longitudinal assessment of pragmatic and cognitive decay in healthy aging, and interplay with subjective cognitive decline and cognitive reserve.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Understanding Theory of Mind-pragmatics relationship through the spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Ten years of using the APACS test: a multistudy cross-diagnostic analysis of pragmatic profiles and their relationship with Theory of Mind.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Pragmatic comprehension and inferential ability: interplay with executive functions and Theory of Mind.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Development and Validation of a Rapid Tool to Measure Pragmatic Abilities: The Brief Assessment of Pragmatic Abilities and Cognitive Substrates (APACS Brief).Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The contribution of executive functions and emotion comprehension skills to the development of pragmatic competence in 5-8-year-old children.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Time course of indirect reply comprehension in the young and older adults: an event-related potential study.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Pragmatic Skills in Late Adulthood.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2024Article
- Exploring Pragmatic Deficits in Relation to Theory of Mind and Executive Functions: Evidence from Individuals with Right Hemisphere Stroke.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Pragmatics: Mapping Evidence on Enhancing Children's Use of Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Capacities for Interactive Communication.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A cross-sectional study to assess pragmatic strengths and weaknesses in healthy ageing.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- The Role of Working Memory in the Processing of Scalar Implicatures of Patients With Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
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Abstract
The role of executive functions in supporting the pragmatics of communication has been extensively examined in clinical populations, but is still under-explored in healthy aging. In this study we addressed the role of executive skills, including inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, in older adults' communicative-pragmatic abilities. Pragmatics was extensively assessed by measuring the understanding of figurative language, narrative texts, humor, and implicatures. A hierarchical regression analysis using composite scores evidenced a global effect of executive functions on communicative-pragmatic abilities, beyond demographic and theory of mind aspects. More fine-grained analyses showed that working memory was the strongest predictor of all pragmatic tasks. Specifically, comprehending narratives and humor seemed to capitalize primarily upon working memory, whereas figurative language and implicatures relied on working memory and to some extent cognitive flexibility. Conversely, inhibition did not stand out as a robust predictor of pragmatics. We argue that working memory allows for the simultaneous consideration of multiple pieces of information needed for pragmatic inferencing, and that only once working memory has played its role other executive aspects, such as cognitive flexibility and inhibition, might come into play. Overall, this study highlights the diverse role of executive skills in pragmatics in aging, and more generally contributes to shed light on pragmatic competence in older adults.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.