Individual Differences in Peripheral Hearing and Cognition Reveal Sentence Processing Differences in Healthy Older Adults

Abstract

When viewed cross-sectionally, aging seems to negatively affect speech comprehension. However, aging is a heterogeneous process, and variability among older adults is typically large. In this study, we investigated language comprehension as a function of individual differences in older adults. Specifically, we tested whether hearing thresholds, working memory, inhibition, and individual alpha frequency would predict event-related potential amplitudes in response to classic psycholinguistic manipulations at the sentence level. Twenty-nine healthy older adults (age range 61–76 years) listened to English sentences containing reduced relative clauses and object-relative clauses while their electroencephalogram was recorded. We found that hearing thresholds and working memory predicted P600 amplitudes early during reduced relative clause processing, while individual alpha frequency predicted P600 amplitudes at a later point in time. The results suggest that participants with better hearing and larger working memory capacity simultaneously activated both the preferred and the dispreferred interpretation of reduced relative clauses, while participants with worse hearing and smaller working memory capacity only activated the preferred interpretation. They also suggest that participants with a higher individual alpha frequency had a higher likelihood of successfully reanalysing the sentence toward the reduced relative clause reading than participants with a lower individual alpha frequency. By contrast, we found no relationship between object-relative clause processing and working memory or hearing thresholds. Taken together, the results support the view that older adults employ different strategies during auditory sentence processing dependent on their hearing and cognitive abilities and that there is no single ability that uniformly predicts sentence processing outcomes.

Neural and cognitive correlates of performance in dynamic multi-modal settings

“…However, while this is initially crucial to performance, participants with a lower IAF may adaptively engage in other preferred strategies to match performance. Further, within the cognitive neuroscience of language literature, there is evidence that IAF reflects individual differences in information processing strategies (Bornkessel et al, 2004; Kurthen et al, 2020), with lower and higher IAF individuals differentially dealing with ambiguous rule-based information and ambiguity resolution. With heightened perceptual sensitivity (Cecere et al, 2015; Immink et al, 2021; Samaha & Postle, 2015) and tendency to update their internal models of the world more often (Kurthen et al, 2020; Surwillo, 1963), those with a higher IAF may adjust more rapidly to novel incoming information, a strategy that is advantagoues to the dynamically changing TMA environment.…”

“…For example, a U-shaped relationship has been observed between alpha and somatosensory perception (Lange et al, 2014;Linkenkaer-Hansen et al, 2004;Zhang & Ding, 2009) and individuals with lower IAF demonstrate superior performance in spatial localisation tasks (Howard et al, 2017). In linguistic contexts, differences in IAF have been proposed to reflect distinct information processing strategies, with lower/higher IAF not more advantageous than the other (Bornkessel et al, 2004;Kurthen et al, 2020). These findings demonstrate the complexities in the relationship between alpha and cognition and could suggest that other electrophysiological phenomena may be interacting with or conflating these findings (Cross, Corcoran, Schlesewsky, Kohler & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, 2020;Donoghue et al, 2020Donoghue et al, , 2021.…”

Electrophysiological indices of individual differences in adult language learning

“…Previous studies have highlighted the possible role alpha rhythms play in processing input in ‘cycles’ of sensory integration (e.g., Mierau et al, 2017). IAF may represent these processing cycles, such that the alpha rhythm reflects the speed at which information is processed within thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical networks (Kurthen et al, 2020; Surwillo, 1963). By contrast, those with a higher IAF performed significantly worse at making correct grammaticality judgements than those with a lower IAF.…”

“…Individual alpha frequency (IAF) is associated with memory (Lebedev, 1994), language (Bornkessel et al, 2004; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky et al, 2015), attention (Angelakis et al, 2004, Klimesch et al, 1993), general cognitive ability (g-factor intelligence; Grandy et al, 2013a, Zakharov et al, 2020), and has recently been shown to modulate sleep-related memory consolidation (Chatburn et al, 2021; Cross et al, 2020b). Specifically, a growing body of work shows that IAF is a more sensitive measure of individual cognitive performance than behavioural measures alone in studying language comprehension (Bornkessel et al, 2004; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky et al, 2015; Kurthen et al, 2020), as well as in naturalistic paradigms of cognition (Dziego et al, 2022)…”

The Principle of Least Effort and Comprehension of Spoken Sentences by Younger and Older Adults

“…In a similar way, issues such as differences in verb attachment in garden path sentences can affect the likelihood of shallow processing and whether one will observe age differences in their comprehension ( Christianson et al, 2006 ). It should also be noted that sensory or cognitive challenge may also affect strategic processing, especially among older adults ( Kurthen et al, 2020 ).…”