Age-related effects on language production

This chapter focuses on the effects of aging on the process of language production from a psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic perspective. The first section of the chapter provides a detailed description of the language production system by outlining the notions of micro- (i.e., lexical and grammatical) and macrolinguistic (i.e., pragmatic and discourse level) processing and introducing to some of the most influential psycholinguistic models of message production. The second part focuses on psycholinguistic investigations assessing age-related variations in the ability to produce a verbal message. A conclusive section outlines the complex interplay between the neural changes induced by aging and the (re)organization of the language production system.