Aging - Influence of auditory

Question 1

Supra-segmental level

Answer 1

rate and rhythm of speech influences processing
• Rate difficulties, but prosodic aspects remain unaffected
• Conveyed by temporal envelope of sound wave

Question 2

Segmental level

Answer 2

gap and duration cues influence phoneme identification
• Conveyed by temporal envelope of sound wave
• Gap detection thresholds are twice the size in older adults compared to younger, not predictable from thresholds – important for marking presence of stop consonants
• Related to difficulties in word identification
• Associated with recognition of syllables in noise, words in noise

Question 3

Subsegmental level

Answer 3

periodicity or synchrony cues influence voice pitch, quality, clarity
• Conveyed by fine temporal structure of the sound wave
• Age-related loss in neural temporal synchrony at various levels of auditory system, leading to increases in temporal jitter, loss of temporal synchrony
• Important for voice encoding, identification of speech where there is a competing speech signal
• Important for VOT

Question 4

Tun, O’Kane, & Wingfield 2002

Answer 4

o Evidence that processing speech in noise involves executive control processes, relating age deficits more to deficits in inhibition than auditory. Word recall was more impaired in the presence of related distractors for older adults, but younger adults were more likely to recognize them