Cognitive Reserve and language processing demand in healthy older adults

Cognitive Reserve (CR) refers to cognitive resources acquired through experiences along the lifespan that allow for flexibility in coping with neurocognitive changes. Investigating the role of CR measures across well-established psycholinguistic features can provide new insight into how CR interplays with cognition. Sixty-five Italian older adults performed a Lexical Decision, a Semantic Matching and a Sentence Reading task. We observed the effects of CR on reaction times and accuracy while varying lexical frequency (high vs low) and lexical semantics (concrete vs abstract) and on reading times of sentences with either syntactic or semantic violations. In the Lexical Decision and Semantic Matching tasks, CR played a role in processing low frequency and abstract words. In the Sentence Reading Task, CR influenced reading times, particularly in the presence of syntactic violations. CR predicts cognitive performance in tasks that require language demands at different levels.