Older adults expend more listening effort than young adults recognizing audiovisual speech in noise

Abstract

Abstract

Objective: Using a dual task paradigm, two experiments were conducted to: (1) quantify the listening effort that young and older adults expend to recognize speech in noise when presented under audio-only (Experiment 1) and audiovisual conditions (Experiment 2) and, (2) determine the influence visual cues have on listening effort. Listening effort refers to the attentional and cognitive resources required to understand speech. Design: All participants performed a closed-set word recognition task and tactile pattern recognition task separately and concurrently. Accuracy and reaction time data were collected. The criterion for single task word recognition performance was set to 80% correct across experiments and across age groups. Study sample: For each experiment, 25 young and 25 older adults with normal hearing and normal (or corrected normal) vision participated. Results: Under equated performance conditions, older adults expended more listening effort than young adults with both audio-only and audiovisually presented speech. Furthermore, the processing demands of audiovisual speech recognition were greater than audio-only speech recognition for all participants. Conclusions: These results suggest that while visual cues can improve audiovisual speech recognition, they can also place an extra demand on processing resources with performance consequences for the word and tactile tasks under dual task conditions.

Sumario

Objetivo: Utilizando un paradigma de doble tarea, se realizaron dos experimentos: 1) cuantificar el esfuerzo que hace los adultos jóvenes y mayores para reconocer el lenguaje en ruido ciando se presenta solo en audio (experimento 1) y en condición audio-visual (experimento 2) y 2) determinar la influencia de las claves visuales en el esfuerzo por comprender. El esfuerzo comprensivo se refiere a los recursos cognitivos y de atención requeridos para comprender el lenguaje. Diseño: Todos los participantes realizaron una tarea de reconocimiento de palabras en contexto cerrado y una tarea de reconocimiento táctil separada y concomitantemente. Se colectaron los datos sobre la precisión y el tiempo de reacción. El criterio para el desempeñ en la prueba de tarea única de reconocimiento de palabras se fijó en 80% de aciertos a través de experimentos y a través de grupos etáreos. Muestra: Para cada experimento, participaron 25 adultos jóvenes y 25 adultos viejos con audición normal y visión normal (o normal corregida). Resultados: En condiciones equitativas de desempeño, los adultos mayores efectuaron mayor esfuerzo que los adultos jóvenes en ambas condiciones de presentación del discurso: sólo audio y audiovisual. Incluso la demanda audiovisual de procesamiento del discurso fue mayor que la auditiva en todos los participantes. Conclusiones: Estos resultados sugieren que mientras las claves visuales pueden mejorar el reconocimiento audiovisual del lenguaje, también demandan un esfuerzo extra en el procesamiento de recursos, con las consecuencias en el desempeño de las tareas táctiles y de palabras en la condición dual.

Key Words::

• Listening effort
• dual task paradigm
• audition
• aging
• audiovisual speech recognition

Acknowledgements

Support for this work was provided by the Caroline Durand Foundation, Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Strategic Training Program on Communication and Social Interaction in Healthy Aging, and the Canadian Federation of University Women. In addition, we would like to thank the efforts of Marie Pier Pelletier and Isabelle St-Pierre for participant recruitment and data collection.

Notes

1. Leclab is a customized software program developed by the Psychology department of the Université de Montréal: for inquiries contact Jean-Pierre Gagné.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.