title: What does successful speech-in-noise perception in aging depend on? Electrophysiological correlates of high and low performance in older adults.
abstract: Aging usually decreases the ability to understand language under difficult listening conditions. However, aging is also associated with increased between-subject variability. Here, we studied potential sources of inter-individual differences and investigated spoken language understanding of younger and older adults (age ranges 21-35 and 57-74 years, respectively) in a simulated "cocktail-party" scenario. A naturalistic "stock-price monitoring" task was employed in which prices of listed companies were simultaneously recited by four speakers at different locations in space. The participants responded when prices of a target company exceeded specific values, while ignoring all other companies. According to their individual performance levels three subgroups of participants were composed, consisting of 12 high-performing and 12 low-performing older adults, and 12 young adults matching the high-performing older group. The analysis of the event-related brain potentials indicated that all older adults showed delayed attentional control (indicated by a later P2) and reduced speech processing (indicated by a reduced N400), relative to the younger adults. High-performing older adults differed in increased allocation of attention and inhibitory control (indicated by a stronger P2-N2 complex) from their low-performing counterparts. The results are consistent with the idea of an adjustment of mental resources that could help compensating potential deficiencies in peripheral and central auditory processing.
authors: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Ardeystraße 67, D-44139 Dortmund, Germany. Electronic address: getzmann@ifado.de.
authors: Stephan
authors: S
authors: Getzmann
authors: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Ardeystraße 67, D-44139 Dortmund, Germany.
authors: Edmund
authors: E
authors: Wascher
authors: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Ardeystraße 67, D-44139 Dortmund, Germany.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Falkenstein
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001299:Audiometry; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009622:Noise; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; Event-related potentials; Spoken language understanding