Effect of off-target verbosity on communication efficiency in a referential communication task.

The referential communication task was used to see if high off-target verbosity (OTV), defined as excessive speech that is lacking in focus, negatively affects communication of nonautobiographical information. The task required 1 individual (the director) to communicate descriptions of abstract figures to another (the matcher). Out of 455 adults aged 63 to 93 who were screened for OTV, 27 directors were drawn from each of the top and bottom 15% of the range of OTV scores and 26 directors and all 80 matchers from the middle 50%. High OTV directors were less efficient communicators about the figures and showed poorer inhibitory control but did not intrude personal information in their speech. The implications of the findings for the inhibitory deficit and pragmatic change explanations of OTV are discussed.