Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging

Roger Kreuz · Richard Roberts

Oct 2019 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Jonathan Yen

About this audiobook

We acquire our native language, seemingly without effort, in infancy and early childhood. Language is our constant companion throughout our lifetime, even as we age. Indeed, compared with other aspects of cognition, language seems to be fairly resilient through the process of aging. In Changing Minds, Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts examine how aging affects language-and how language affects aging. Kreuz and Roberts report that what appear to be changes in an older person's language ability are actually produced by declines in such other cognitive processes as memory and perception. Some language abilities, including vocabulary size and writing ability, may even improve with age. And certain language activities-including reading fiction and engaging in conversation-may even help us live fuller and healthier lives. Kreuz and Roberts explain the cognitive processes underlying our language ability, exploring in particular how changes in these processes lead to changes in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They consider, among other things, the inability to produce a word that's on the tip of your tongue-and suggest that the increasing incidence of this with age may be the result of a surfeit of world knowledge.

About the author

Roger Kreuz is Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of Memphis. He is coauthor, with Richard Roberts, of Becoming Fluent, Getting Through, and Changing Minds.

Richard Roberts is a Foreign Service Officer currently serving as the Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Okinawa, Japan. He is coauthor, with Roger Kreuz, of Becoming Fluent and Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-Cultural Communication.

Jonathan Yen was inspired by the Golden Age of Radio, and he's carried that inspiration through to commercial work, voice acting, and stage productions. From vintage Howard Fast science fiction to naturalist Paul Rosolie's true adventures in the Amazon, Jonathan loves to tell a good story.