Cognitive and linguistic characteristics of narrative discourse production in healthy aging

Human communication relies on a wide range of skills. Among these, the ability to convey complex meanings through discourse is of crucial importance. For this reason, over the past 40 years, growing attention has been dedicated to the analysis of the linguistic and cognitive characteristics of both discourse processing and production (e.g., Gernsbacher, 1990; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Such developments have triggered an increasing interest in the field of the neuropsychology of language, targeting how language is processed above the sentence level in daily communicative interactions in persons with healthy aging or in individuals with communicative impairments related to neurodevelopmental disorders, acquired brain lesions, or neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Le et al., 2012). The terms healthy, typical, and normal aging are often used interchangeably. Regardless of terminology, the study of discourse across the life span, along with associated cognitive and linguistic processes, is at the core of eliciting, measuring, interpreting interpreting, and managing discourse behaviors in adults with neurological challenges. Understanding the range of typical discourse behaviors allows for development of norms and discourse profiles that can differentiate typically from atypically aging adults and further distinguish the various neurological conditions that affect discourse. This chapter focuses primarily on narrative production and aging. It outlines the characteristics of the linguistic system and provides a model of discourse production that highlights the interaction between cognition and language. The rest of the chapter addresses the issue of how changes in healthy aging affect the cognitive skills that allow for efficient discourse processing, contributing to reduced discourse production abilities.