In realistic listening environments, speech perception requires grouping together audible fragments of speech, filling in missing information, and segregating the glimpsed target from the background. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which age-related difficulties with these tasks can be explained by declines in glimpsing, phonemic restoration, and/or speech segregation. Younger and older adults with normal hearing listened to sentences interrupted with silence or envelope-modulated noise, presented either in quiet or with a competing talker. Older adults were poorer than younger adults at recognizing keywords based on short glimpses but benefited more when envelope-modulated noise filled silent intervals. Recognition declined with a competing talker but this effect did not interact with age. Results of cognitive tasks indicated that faster processing speed and better visual-linguistic closure were predictive of better speech understanding. Taken together, these results suggest that age-related declines in speech recognition may be partially explained by difficulty grouping short glimpses of speech into a coherent message.
References
1.
ANSI
(2010
). ANSI/ASA S3.6-2010, American National Standard Specification for Audiometers
(American National Standards Institute
, New York)
.2.
Baltes
, P. B.
(1993
). “The aging mind: Potential and limits
,” Gerontologist
33
, 580
–594
.3.
Bashford
, J. A.
, Jr., Meyers
, M. D.
, Brubaker
, B. S.
, and Warren
, R. M.
(1988
). “Illusory continuity of interrupted speech: Speech rate determines durational limits
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
84
, 1635
–1638
.4.
Bashford
, J. A.
, Jr., and Warren
, R. M.
(1987
). “Multiple phonemic restorations follow the rules for auditory induction
,” Percept. Psychophys.
42
, 114
–121
.5.
Bashford
, J. A.
, Jr., Warren
, R. M.
, and Brown
, C. A.
(1996
). “Use of speech-modulated noise adds strong ‘bottom-up’ cues for phonemic restoration
,” Percept. Psychophys.
58
, 342
–350
.6.
Başkent
, D.
(2010
). “Phonemic restoration in sensorineural hearing loss does not depend on baseline speech perception scores
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am
128
, EL169
–EL174
.7.
Başkent
, D.
, Eiler
, C. L.
, and Edwards
, B.
(2010
). “Phonemic restoration by hearing-impaired listeners with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss
,” Hear. Res.
260
, 54
–62
.8.
Bates
, D.
, Maechler
, M.
, Bolker
, B.
, and Walker
, S.
(2015
). “Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4
,” J. Stat. Softw.
67
, 1
–48
.9.
Benard
, M. R.
, Mensink
, J. S.
, and Başkent
, D.
(2014
). “Individual differences in top-down restoration of interrupted speech: Links to linguistic and cognitive abilities
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
135
, EL88
–EL94
.10.
Ben-David
, B. M.
, Tse
, V. Y.
, and Schneider
, B. A.
(2012
). “Does it take older adults longer than younger adults to perceptually segregate a speech target from a background masker?
,” Hear. Res.
290
, 55
–63
.11.
Bregman
, A. S.
(1990
). Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound
(MIT Press
, Cambridge, MA)
, pp. 1
–705
.12.
Brungart
, D. S.
(2001
). “Informational and energetic masking effects in the perception of two simultaneous talkers
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
109
, 1101
–1109
.13.
Brysbaert
, M.
, and New
, B.
(2009
). “Moving beyond Kucera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English
,” Behav. Res. Methods.
41
, 977
–990
.14.
Clark
, H. H.
(1973
). “The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research
,” J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav.
12
, 335
–359
.15.
Cluff
, M. S.
, and Luce
, P. A.
(1990
). “Similarity neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable words: Retroactive effects on multiple activation
,” J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform.
16
, 551
–563
.16.
Cole
, R. A.
, and Perfetti
, C. A.
(1980
). “Listening for mispronunciations in a children's story: The use of context by children and adults
,” J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav.
19
, 297
–315
.17.
Cooke
, M.
(2006
). “A glimpsing model of speech perception in noise
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
119
, 1562
–1573
.18.
Daneman
, M.
, and Carpenter
, P. A.
(1980
). “Individual differences in working memory and reading
,” J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav.
19
, 450
–466
.19.
DeCaro
, R.
, Peelle
, J. E.
, Grossman
, M.
, and Wingfield
, A.
(2016
). “The two sides of sensory-cognitive interactions: Effects of age, hearing acuity, and working memory span on sentence comprehension
,” Front. Psychol.
7
, 236
.20.
Dirks
, D. D.
, Bell
, T. S.
, Rossman
, R. N.
, and Kincaid
, G. E.
(1986
). “Articulation index predictions of contextually dependent words
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
80
, 82
–92
.21.
Dubno
, J. R.
, Horwitz
, A. R.
, and Ahlstrom
, J. B.
(2002
). “Benefit of modulated maskers for speech recognition by younger and older adults with normal hearing
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
111
, 2897
–2907
.22.
Dubno
, J. R.
, Horwitz
, A. R.
, and Ahlstrom
, J. B.
(2003
). “Recovery from prior stimulation: Masking of speech by interrupted noise for younger and older adults with normal hearing
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
113
, 2084
–2094
.23.
Durlach
, N. I.
, Mason
, C. R.
, Kidd
, G.
, Arbogast
, T. L.
, Colburn
, S.
, and Shinn-Cunningham
, B. G.
(2003
). “Note on informational masking (L)
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
113
, 2984
–2987
.24.
Eisenberg
, L. S.
, Dirks
, D. D.
, and Bell
, T. S.
(1995
). “Speech recognition in amplitude-modulated noise of listeners with normal and listeners with impaired hearing
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
38
, 222
–233
.25.
Ezzatian
, P.
, Li
, L.
, Pichora-Fuller
, K.
, and Schneider
, B. A.
(2015
). “Delayed stream segregation in older adults: More than just informational masking
,” Ear Hear.
36
, 482
–484
.26.
Festen
, J. M.
, and Plomp
, R.
(1990
). “Effects of fluctuating noise and interfering speech on the speech-reception threshold for impaired and normal hearing
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
88
, 1725
–1736
.27.
Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Gordon-Salant
, S.
(1987
). “Temporal gap resolution in listeners with high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
81
, 133
–137
.28.
Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Gordon-Salant
, S.
(1994
). “Age effects on measures of auditory duration discrimination
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
37
, 662
–670
.29.
Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Gordon Salant
, S.
(1995
). “Age effects on duration discrimination with simple and complex stimuli
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
98
, 3140
–3145
.30.
Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Gordon Salant
, S.
(1996
). “Auditory temporal processing in elderly listeners
,” J. Am. Acad. Audiol.
7
, 183
–189
.31.
Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Gordon Salant
, S.
(2001
). “Aging and temporal discrimination in auditory sequences
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
109
, 2955
–2963
.32.
Folstein
, M. F.
, Folstein
, S. E.
, and McHugh
, P. R.
(1975
). “ ‘Mini-mental state.’ A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician
,” J. Psychiatr. Res.
12
, 189
–198
.33.
Füllgrabe
, C.
, Moore
, B. C.
, and Stone
, M. A.
(2015
). “Age-group differences in speech identification despite matched audiometrically normal hearing: Contributions from auditory temporal processing and cognition
,” Front. Aging. Neurosci.
6
, 347
.34.
Garofolo
, J. S.
, Lamel
, L. F.
, Fisher
, W. M.
, Fiscus
, J. G.
, Pallett
, D. S.
, and Dahlgren
, N. L.
(1993
). “DARPA TIMIT acoustic-phonetic continuous speech corpus CDROM
,” Linguistic Data Consortium, Philadelphia.35.
George
, E. L. H.
, Zekveld
, A. A.
, Kramer
, S. E.
, Goverts
, S. T.
, Festen
, J. M.
, and Houtgast
, T.
(2007
). “Auditory and nonauditory factors affecting speech reception in noise by older listeners
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
121
, 2362
–2375
.36.
Gilbert
, G.
, Bergeras
, I.
, Voillery
, D.
, and Lorenzi
, C.
(2007
). “Effects of periodic interruptions on the intelligibility of speech based on temporal fine-structure or envelope cues
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
122
, 1336
–1339
.37.
Gilbert
, J. L.
, Tamati
, T. N.
, and Pisoni
, D. B.
(2013
). “Development, reliability, and validity of PRESTO: A new high-variability sentence recognition test
,” J. Am. Acad. Audiol.
24
, 26
–36
.38.
Gordon-Salant
, S.
, and Cole
, S. S.
(2016
). “Effects of age and working memory capacity on speech recognition performance in noise among listeners with normal hearing
,” Ear Hear.
37
, 593
–602
.39.
Gordon-Salant
, S.
, and Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
(1993
). “Temporal factors and speech recognition performance in young and elderly listeners
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
36
, 1276
–1285
.40.
Gordon-Salant
, S.
, Yeni-Komshian
, G. H.
, Fitzgibbons
, P. J.
, and Barrett
, J.
(2006
). “Age-related differences in identification and discrimination of temporal cues in speech segments
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
119
, 2455
–2466
.41.
Helfer
, K. S.
, and Freyman
, R. L.
(2008
). “Aging and speech-on-speech masking
,” Ear Hear.
29
, 87
–98
.42.
Helfer
, K. S.
, and Freyman
, R. L.
(2009
). “Lexical and indexical cues in masking by competing speech
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
125
, 447
–456
.43.
Hinkle
, D. E.
, Wiersma
, W.
, and Jurs
, S. G.
(2003
). Applied Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
, 5th ed. (Houghton Mifflin
, Boston
).44.
Hofmann
, D. A.
(1997
). “An overview of the logic and rationale of hierarchical linear models
,” J. Manage.
23
, 723
–744
.45.
Humes
, L. E.
, Kidd
, G. R.
, and Lentz
, J. J.
(2013
). “Auditory and cognitive factors underlying individual differences in aided speech-understanding among older adults
,” Front. Syst. Neurosci.
7
, 1
–16
.46.
Humes
, L. E.
, Kidd
, G. R.
, and Lentz
, J. J.
(2016
). “Corrigendum: Auditory and cognitive factors underlying individual differences in aided speech-understanding among older adults
,” Front. Syst. Neurosci.
10
, 1
.47.
Humes
, L. E.
, Watson
, B. U.
, Christensen
, L. A.
, Cokely
, C. G.
, Halling
, D. C.
, and Lee
, L.
(1994
). “Factors associated with individual differences in clinical measures of speech recognition among the elderly
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
37
, 465
–474
.48.
Jaekel
, B. N.
, Newman
, R. S.
, and Groupell
, M. J.
(2018
). “Age effects on perceptual restoration of degraded interrupted sentences
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
143
, 84
–97
.49.
Jin
, S. H.
, and Nelson
, P. B.
(2006
). “Speech perception in gated noise: The effects of temporal resolution
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
119
, 3097
–3108
.50.
Jin
, S. H.
, and Nelson
, P. B.
(2010
). “Interrupted speech perception: The effects of hearing sensitivity and frequency resolution
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
128
, 881
–889
.51.
Kidd
, G.
, Jr., Arbogast
, T. L.
, Mason
, C. R.
, and Gallun
, F. J.
(2005
). “The advantage of knowing where to listen
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
118
, 3804
–3815
.52.
Kidd
, G. R.
, and Humes
, L. E.
(2012
). “Effects of age and hearing loss on the recognition of interrupted words in isolation and in sentences
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
131
, 1434
–1448
.53.
Krull
, V.
, Humes
, L. E.
, and Kidd
, G. R.
(2013
). “Reconstructing wholes from parts: Effects of modality, age, and hearing loss on word recognition
,” Ear Hear.
34
, e14
–e23
.54.
Kwon
, B. J.
(2012
). “Token (version 1.36) [computer program]
,” available at auditorypro.com/aux/ (Last viewed 5 September 2012).55.
Lee
, J. H.
, and Humes
, L. E.
(2012
). “Effect of fundamental-frequency and sentence-onset differences on speech-identification performance of young and older adults in a competing-talker background
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
132
, 1700
–1717
.56.
Miller
, G. A.
, and Licklder
, J. C. R.
(1950
). “The intelligibility of interrupted speech
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
22
, 167
–173
.57.
Molis
, M. R.
, Kampel
, S. D.
, McMillan
, G. P.
, Gallun
, F. J.
, Dann
, S. M.
, and Konrad-Martin
, D.
(2015
). “Effects of hearing and aging on sentence-level time-gated word recognition
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
52
, 481
–496
.58.
Moore
, B. C.
(1990
). “Co-modulation masking release: Spectro-temporal pattern analysis in hearing
,” Br. J. Audiol.
24
, 131
–137
.59.
Moore
, B. C.
(2003
). “Temporal integration and context effects in hearing
,” J. Phon.
31
, 563
–574
.60.
Murdock
, B. B.
, Jr. (1968
). “Serial order effects in short-term memory
,” J. Exp. Psychol.
76
, 1
–15
.61.
Pichora-Fuller
, M. K.
(2008
). “Use of supportive context by younger and older adult listeners: Balancing bottom-up and top-down information processing
,” Int. J. Audiol.
47
, S72
–S82
.62.
Pichora-Fuller
, M. K.
, Schneider
, B. A.
, and Daneman
, M.
(1995
). “How young and old adults listen to and remember speech in noise
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
97
, 1197
–1205
.63.
Powers
, G. L.
, and Wilcox
, J. C.
(1977
). “Intelligibility of temporally interrupted speech with and without intervening noise
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
61
, 195
–199
.64.
Rajan
, R.
, and Cainer
, K. E.
(2008
). “Ageing without hearing loss or cognitive impairment causes a decrease in speech intelligibility only in informational maskers
,” Neuroscience
154
, 784
–795
.65.
R Development Core Team
(2016
). “R: A language and environment for statistical computing
,” R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, available at http://www.R-project.org (Last viewed 21 June 2018).66.
Rönnberg
, J.
(1990
). “Cognitive and communicative function: The effects of chronological age and ‘handicap age,’
” Eur. J. Cogn. Psychol.
2
, 253
–273
.67.
Saija
, J. D.
, Akyurek
, E. G.
, Andringa
, T. C.
, and Başkent
, D.
(2014
). “Perceptual restoration of degraded speech is preserved with advancing age
,” J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol.
15
, 139
–148
.68.
Salthouse
, T. A.
(2000
). “Aging and measures of processing speed
,” Biol. Psychol.
54
, 35
–54
.69.
Shafiro
, V.
, Sheft
, S.
, and Risley
, R.
(2016
). “The intelligibility of interrupted and temporally altered speech: Effects of context, age, and hearing loss
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
139
, 455
–465
.70.
Shafiro
, V.
, Sheft
, S.
, Risley
, R.
, and Gygi
, B.
(2015
). “Effects of age and hearing loss on the intelligibility of interrupted speech
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
137
, 745
–756
.71.
Shinn-Cunningham
, B. G.
(2008
). “Object-based auditory and visual attention
,” Trends Cogn. Sci.
12
, 182
–186
.72.
Shinn-Cunningham
, B. G.
, and Wang
, D.
(2008
). “Influences of auditory object formation on phonemic restoration
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
123
, 295
–301
.73.
Simpson
, A. N.
, Matthews
, L. J.
, and Dubno
, J. R.
(2013
). “Lipid and C-reactive protein levels as risk factors for hearing loss in older adults
,” Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg.
148
, 664
–670
.74.
Srinivasan
, S.
, and Wang
, D.
(2005
). “A schema-based model for phonemic restoration
,” Speech Commun.
45
, 63
–87
.75.
Stroop
, J. R.
(1935
). “Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions
,” J. Exp. Psychol.
18
, 643
–662
.76.
Studebaker
, G. A.
(1985
). “A ‘rationalized’ arcsine transform
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
28
, 455
–462
.77.
Surprenant
, A. M.
, Pitt
, M. A.
, and Crowder
, R. G.
(1993
). “Auditory recency in immediate memory
,” Q. J. Psychol. A
46
, 193
–223
.78.
Takahashi
, G. A.
, and Bacon
, S. P.
(1992
). “Modulation detection, modulation masking, and speech understanding in noise in the elderly
,” J. Speech Hear. Res.
35
, 1410
–1421
.79.
Tiffin
, J.
, and Asher
, E. J.
(1948
). “The Purdue Pegboard: Norms and studies of reliability and validity
,” J. Appl. Psychol.
32
, 234
–247
.80.
Tombaugh
, T. N.
, and McIntyre
, N. J.
(1992
). “The mini-mental state examination: A comprehensive review
,” J. Am. Geriatr. Soc.
40
, 922
–935
.81.
Trenerry
, M. R.
, Crosson
, B.
, DeBoe
, J.
, and Leber
, W. R.
(1989
). The Stroop Neuropsychological Screening Test
(Psychological Assessment Resources
, Odessa, FL
).82.
Tun
, P. A.
, O'Kane
, G.
, and Wingfield
, A.
(2002
). “Distraction by competing speech in young and older adult listeners
,” Psychol. Aging
17
, 453
–467
.83.
Vaden
, K. I.
, Halpin
, H. R.
, and Hickok
, G. S.
(2009
). “Irvine Phonotactic Online Dictionary, version 2.0
,” available at http://www.iphod.com (Last viewed 27 September 2017).84.
Verhaeghen
, P.
(2003
). “Aging and vocabulary scores: A meta-analysis
,” Psychol. Aging
18
, 332
–339
.85.
Verschuure
, J.
, and Brocaar
, M. P.
(1983
). “Intelligibility of interrupted meaningful and nonsense speech with and without intervening noise
,” Percept. Psychophys.
33
, 232
–240
.86.
Versfeld
, N. J.
, Daalder
, L.
, Festen
, J. M.
, and Houtgast
, T.
(2000
). “Method for the selection of sentence materials for efficient measurement of the speech reception threshold
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
107
, 1671
–1684
.87.
Vitevitch
, M. S.
, Luce
, P. A.
, Pisoni
, D. B.
, and Auer
, E. T.
(1999
). “Phonotactics, neighborhood activation, and lexical access for spoken words
,” Brain Lang.
68
, 306
–311
.88.
Wang
, X.
, and Humes
, L. E.
(2010
). “Factors influencing recognition of interrupted speech
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
128
, 2100
–2111
.89.
Warren
, R. M.
(1970
). “Perceptual restoration of missing speech sounds
,” Science
167
, 392
–393
.90.
Zekveld
, A. A.
, George
, E. L.
, Kramer
, S. E.
, Goverts
, S. T.
, and Houtgast
, T.
(2007
). “The development of the text reception threshold test: A visual analogue of the speech reception threshold test
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
50
, 576
–584
.© 2018 Acoustical Society of America.
2018
Acoustical Society of America
You do not currently have access to this content.