本篇研究在於測驗以閩南語為第一語言的老年人和年輕人，觀察他們處理詞彙的語義關係時的腦部反應。實驗設計以閩南語雙音節詞彙「刺激詞-目標詞」的配對並用聽覺詞彙促發的方式呈現，語義配對的關係操弄三種情況：高相關、低相關和無關，其中一半為有語義相關的詞彙配對，另一半為語義無關的詞彙配對，在有相關語義的詞彙當中又各分為高相關和低相關的詞彙配對類型，施測語料也經過受試者行為判斷的「五點量表」篩選。接著以ERP為實驗工具，針對十四位老年人(平均年齡61歲)和十三位年輕人(平均年齡28歲)進行測驗，所有受試者皆以閩南語第一語言的台華雙語人。
本研究的實驗語料設計觀察各種語義相關的模型理論，以及詞彙促發和詞彙提取方式的模型。實驗結果顯示「擴展激活模型」（spreading activation model），表現詞彙語義之間靈活的促發繫連，在腦波N400(於目標詞出現後約300~600 ms之間)成分的表現上，高相關的刺激條件N400潛伏期反應時間最短，而低相關刺激條件N400潛伏期反應時間最常，符合語義關係強會縮短彼此連結的距離，若為語義無關，語義之間距離長且詞彙被促發較弱。
此外，在N400腦波成分的潛伏期和波幅方面，「Aging」的因素使得老年人在無關刺激條件N400波幅變小，高相關刺激條件N400波幅變大，三種情況的N400潛伏期時間都比年輕人長。實驗結果顯示老年人在高相關與低相關兩種刺激條與預期不同，在高相關的刺激條件下N400波幅比年輕人小，N400潛伏期短，且低相關刺激條件N400波幅幾乎與無關一樣大。我們認為因為「年老」使得老年人處理語義的連結方式「簡化」，對高相關詞彙保持強的連結，但是對低相關詞彙因不常使用，而使得語義之間的連結強度變得更弱。最後，本研究支持「Aging」影響老年人的第一語言詞彙語義處理的方式。

The aim of this study is to examine whether the activation of lexical meaning is similar for older and younger bilingual adults. Age-relation changes in lexical processing is examined and compared using event-relation potentials (ERPs) recorded as young and elderly participants listened to natural speech for comprehension. The Spreading Activation Model is adopted as our theoretical model for semantic processing.
In this study, ERPs are recorded as the older and younger subjects listen to the word pairs. Half of the stimuli (160 items) are semantically associated pairs, whereas the other half (160 items) are semantically irrelevant pairs. In selecting the word pairs, 80 categories were chosen first. Then a typical word (higher-associated) for the each category was decided, and then the typical word was matched with an atypical (lower-associated) and a semantically irrelevant word. The materials included 160 semantically related word-pairs (80 higher-associated and 80 lower-associated) and 160 semantically irrelevant word-pairs. 17 subjects (10 younger and 7 older) were asked to do a five-point scale rating for each word pair, as 5 for very high semantic association and 1 very low semantic association. The averages for each category are listed as following
The effects of semantically associated and semantically irrelevant word pairs are compared. Fourteen older Mandarin and Taiwanese bilingual adults (mean age: 61 years) and thirteen education-matched younger Mandarin and Taiwanese bilingual adults (mean age: 28 years) are tested. Both of them are tested with their first language, Taiwanese. The results show the decrease in N400 (time window between 300-600ms after the target appears) amplitude in non-associated and the increase in N400 peak are found in older subjects in high-associated. It suggests that "Aging" brings changes in the older.
Besides, the older group also shows a different pattern in semantic processing between higher associated pairs and lower associated pairs from the younger group. For the younger subjects, the activation of the lower associated pairs is in between of the higher associated pairs and irrelevant pairs. For the older subjects, the semantic links of high-associated pairs are much stronger than the semantic links between the lower associated pairs, whose semantic links become almost as weak as that of the irrelevant pairs. It is speculated that higher associated pairs remain strong links through frequent use, but the links between the lower associated pairs are trimmed as aging.

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