Compound words are stored in the mental lexicon as mixed representations, in which transparent words are represented by morphemes and opaque words are represented by whole words. Semantic transparency effects exhibit cross-age consistency which do not rely on valid preview information but instead stem from foveal in-depth processing. However, age differences in semantic integration become apparent in parafoveal preview processing which demands greater cognitive resources, with older adults experiencing greater difficulty recognizing opaque words than younger adults.
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Cao et al. (2025) studied this question.
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