Effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented multisyllabic words

Abstract

The effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented words of varying syllable length were investigated. It was hypothesized that with increments in length of syllables, there would be atypical alterations in syllable stress in accented compared to native English, and that these altered stress patterns would be sensitive to auditory temporal processing deficits with aging. Sets of one-, two-, three-, and four-syllable words with the same initial syllable were recorded by one native English and two Spanish-accented talkers. Lists of these words were presented in isolation and in sentence contexts to younger and older normal-hearing listeners and to older hearingimpaired listeners. Hearing loss effects were apparent for unaccented and accented monosyllabic words, whereas age effects were observed for recognition of accented multisyllabic words, consistent with the notion that altered syllable stress patterns with accent are sensitive for revealing effects of age. Older listeners also exhibited lower recognition scores for moderately accented words in sentence contexts than in isolation, suggesting that the added demands on working memory for words in sentence contexts impact recognition of accented speech. The general pattern of results suggests that hearing loss, age, and cognitive factors limit the ability to recognize Spanish-accented speech.

Listeners' attitudes toward accented talkers uniquely predicts accented speech perception

“…Employing a stepwise hierarchical regression via maximumlikelihood testing the final model regressed accuracy perceiving accented speech against hearing thresholds, auditory working memory capacity, inhibitory control, the interaction of hearing thresholds and working memory, and the interaction of hearing thresholds and inhibitory control. Previous analyses indicated that younger and older adults differed in their accented speech perception accuracy, with younger adults being more accurate than older adults (e.g., Gordon-Salant et al, 2015), and we therefore tested whether age would be a significant contributor to this initial model. The improvement in fit was indeed significant, F(154, 153) ¼ 5.28, p ¼ 0.02, but the gain in variance accounted for was minimal, without age R 2 ¼ 0.21, with age R 2 ¼ 0.24.…”

Word segmentation from noise-band vocoded speech

“…hearing loss), and the use of hearing devices (i.e. cochlear implants) restrict access to spectral cues that are important for speech unit recognition (Donaldson & Kreft, 2006; Gordon-Salant, Yeni-Komshian, Fitzgibbons, & Cohen, 2015; Munson, Donaldson, Allen, Collison, & Nelson, 2003; Xu & Pfingst, 2008; Zhou, Xu, & Lee, 2010). When recognition is impaired, there are consequences for processing both within and beyond the domain of language.…”

Perception of contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress in unaccented and accented words by younger and older listeners

“…Second, older adults have shown more difficulty than younger adults in perceiving lexical stress that distinguishes compound words (e.g., "greenhouse") from adjective-word pairs (e.g., "green house") in English (Taler et al, 2006). Third, older listeners exhibit greater difficulty compared to younger listeners in understanding Spanishaccented multisyllabic words (Gordon-Salant et al, 2015) and sentences (Gordon-Salant et al, 2013), which may be due, in part, to difficulty perceiving altered stress patterns associated with accent. Our studies have shown that the differences listed above in recognition of Spanish-accented English are even more pronounced in older listeners with hearing loss.…”