Cognitive factors as predictors of accented speech perception for younger and older adults

Abstract

Though some studies suggest that older adults are not differentially impacted by foreign-accented speech relative to younger adults, other studies indicate that older adults are poorer at perceiving foreign-accented speech than younger adults. The present study sought, first, to clarify the extent to which older and younger adults differed in their perception of foreign-accented speech. The secondary aim was to elucidate the extent to which the cognitive mechanisms supporting accented speech perception differ for older and younger adults. The data indicated that older adults were poorer at perceiving accented speech than younger adults. Older adults' speech perception accuracy was associated with a significant main effect of working memory as well as significant interactions between hearing acuity and cognitive flexibility and between hearing acuity and inhibitory control. Younger adults' speech perception accuracy, in contrast, was associated with a significant interaction between hearing acuity and processing speed. It therefore appears that the differences in performance between younger and older adults observed here may be attributable to differences in the cognitive mechanisms that support accented speech perception.

Older adults' perception of multiple speech types predicted by common cognitive factors

“…We previously found that older adults were poorer than younger adults at perceiving foreign-accented speech [3], but that there was no difference between older and younger adults when perceiving dysarthric speech [4]. The current results expand on our previous findings by suggesting that even though older adults' performance may differ across speech types, common speech perception mechanisms may be at play.…”

“…Our previous reports [3,4] indicated that older adults' perception of both accented and dysarthric speech was predicted by working memory capacity and by interactions between hearing acuity and inhibitory control. An interaction between hearing acuity and cognitive flexibility was only found for accented speech [3] whereas a main effect of cognitive flexibility and an interaction between hearing acuity and receptive vocabulary were only found in our investigation of dysarthric speech [4].…”

“…The current results expand on our previous findings by suggesting that even though older adults' performance may differ across speech types, common speech perception mechanisms may be at play. Across these three studies, then, we see evidence that these common mechanisms could be leveraged to improve speech perception in situations where older adults particularly struggle [3], or to enhance comprehension of motor speech disorders [4,6].…”

“…Naturally occurring forms of difficult-to-perceive speech include foreign-accented speech and disordered speech, such as speech by talkers with dysarthria. We recently completed two separate studies to investigate how older adults compared to younger adults when perceiving foreign-accented and dysarthric speech [3,4]. These investigations demonstrated that older adults were differentially impacted when listening to foreign-accented but not dysarthric speech and, more relevant to the current effort, that different cognitive supports were predictive of older and younger adults' difficult speech perception.…”

Effects of Familiarization on Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech in Older Adults With and Without Hearing Loss

“…Previous research suggests that understanding spoken language, particularly in difficult listening situations (e.g., speech in noise and foreign-accented speech), may be affected by age-related factors, including hearing loss and declines in cognitive function (e.g., Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 2004;Gordon-Salant, Yeni-Komshian, & Fitzgibbons, 2010;Wingfield, Tun, & McCoy, 2005). Indeed, relative to younger adults, older adults, with and without hearing loss, experience greater difficulty understanding speech in noise and foreign-accented speech (e.g., Dubno, Dirks, & Morgan, 1984;Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 1995;Ingvalson, Lansford, Fedorova, & Fernandez, 2017;Schneider, Daneman, Murphy, & See, 2000;Souza, Arehart, Shen, Anderson, & Kates, 2015). In addition, the cognitive mechanisms supporting perception of speech in difficult listening conditions may be different for younger and older adults.…”