• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.111-132
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• 2013

Previous research has shown that aging asymmetrically affects various functions in language. It is known that older adults show deficits in language production compared to young adults, while the performance in semantic processing is similar between older and young adults. The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon effectively reflects failure in retrieval of phonological knowledge. Older adults report TOTs more often than young adults and the cause of this phenomenon has been explained by two frameworks: the 'blocking hypothesis' and 'transmission deficit hypothesis'. This study examines the effect of aging on the retrival of phonological knowledge by inducing TOTs in the laboratory. Two variables were manipulated: age and word category. Participants were young and older adults, and stimuli was selected from 5 categories of words. After the participants read a definition about a target word, they reported three conditions: 'know', 'don't know', 'TOT'. The results were as follows: First, the older adults reported TOTs more often than the young adults. Second, TOTs occurred more in proper nouns such as names of persons and places. Third, in the category that TOTs occurred more often, there was a bigger age difference. Fourth, older adults reported fewer alternative words during TOT than young adults. Fifth, participants tended to report the partial information during TOT in characters. These results show the age-related difficulty in the retrieval of phonological knowledge in Korean. It is explained by the transmission deficit hypothesis and the characteristics of Korean orthography and phonology.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.482-492
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• 2019

This study began with the assumption that the phonetics-centered interpretation of 100 Chinese characters would enhance thinking ability and comprehension. For this purpose, two experimental groups and a comparative group were recruited from the graduate students from June 3, 2017 to February 22, 2018. The experimental group participated in the phonetics-centered Chinese character lecture for 4 hours per week for 6 weeks for a total of 24 hours. QEEG were measured before and after the phonetics-centered Chinese character lecture. A total of 18 subjects ( nine subjects in the experimental group and nine comparative subjects) were included in the study, and the difference between before and after the QEEG of the experimental and comparative groups was analyzed, respectively. The conclusions drawn from this study are as follows. First, the Chinese character lecture changed brain waves. Second, the LORETA analysis before and after the lecture in the experimental group significantly decreased the delta wave in the brain region (Broadmann 40) associated with the meaning of language and phonology. This study result is meaningful because it shows the significant changes of EEG via the lecture.