Clear speech adaptations in spontaneous speech produced by young and older adults

Abstract

The study investigated the speech adaptations by older adults with and without age-related hearing loss made to communicate effectively in challenging communicative conditions. Acoustic analyses were carried out on spontaneous speech produced during a problem-solving task (diapix) carried out by talker pairs in different listening conditions. There were 83 talkers of Southern British English. 57 talkers were older adults (OA) aged 65-84: 30 with normal hearing (OANH) and 27 (OAHL) with presbycusis (mean PTA .250-4kHz: 27.7 dB HL). 26 talkers were younger adults (YA) aged 18-26 with normal hearing. Participants were recorded while completing the diapix task with a conversational partner (YA of the same sex) when (a) both talkers heard normally (NORM), (b) the partner had a simulated hearing loss (HLS) and (c) both talkers heard babble noise (BAB2). Irrespective of hearing status, there were age-related differences in some acoustic characteristics of YA and OA speech produced in NORM, most likely linked to physiological factors. In challenging conditions, while OANH talkers typically patterned with YA talkers, OAHL talkers made adaptations more consistent with an increase in vocal effort. Our study suggests that even mild presbycusis in healthy older adults can affect the speech adaptations made to maintain effective communication.PACS number: 43.70 Mn I.

Subjective Evaluation of Communicative Effort for Younger and Older Adults in Interactive Tasks with Energetic and Informational Masking

“…Older adults did not give higher ratings of perceived effort and background interference than young adults, with only a minor age effect on perceived concentration. In our previous Diapix study with older adults [11], OAs with normal hearing patterned with young adults in terms of their clear speech adaptations in challenging conditions while those with mild presbycusis exhibited greater vocal effort so these results are consistent with that study. The fact that Diapix ratings only showed weak correlation with the SSQ questionnaire may reflect the fact that the SSQ is aimed at respondents with hearing loss.…”

“…More recent paradigms have investigated the impact of challenging listening conditions using tasks that involve real communication and exchange of information between pairs of participants. For example, Diapix [8,9], a 'spot the difference' picture task, has been used to investigate communication in challenging conditions in young [10] and older adults [11] and in children aged 9 to 14 [12], focusing on the clear speech adaptations made in various conditions. Another recent approach is the tangram puzzle task developed by Beechey and colleagues [13].…”

Disfluencies in spontaneous speech in easy and adverse communicative situations: the effect of age

“…There are large individual differences in how effectively clear speech is produced (e.g. Hazan et al, 2018). This may extend to disfluency use, too.…”

The impact of speaking style on speech recognition in quiet and multi-talker babble in adult cochlear implant users

“…In real-world conditions, speakers may improve the clarity of their speech by speaking more loudly, slowing their speech, or hyperarticulating Braida, 2002, 2004;Hazan et al, 2018). In normal hearing (NH) listeners, these "clear speech" modifications typically result in an intelligibility benefit (Janse et al, 2007;Liu et al, 2004) relative to conversationally reduced speech, where speech sounds are often shorter or weaker, while the speaking rate is often faster and more variable (e.g., Ernestus and Warner, 2011).…”