Specific effects of the Trier Social Stress Test on speech fluency in young and older adults

ABSTRACT

The notion that speech becomes less fluent during stressful speaking conditions has received little empirical test, and no research has tested this relationship in older adult participants. We analyzed speeches produced during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or during a less stressful placebo (pTSST) version of the task. We measured young and older adults’ speech fillers (e.g., um), unfilled pauses (at least 1 s in duration), and other disfluencies (e.g., repetitions, repairs). Neither young nor older adult participants rated themselves as having greater stress in the TSST than pTSST condition, but behavioral effects were obtained. Participants in the TSST condition produced more mid-phrase speech fillers and unfilled pauses than participants in the pTSST condition. Young adults produced more unfilled pauses than older adults overall, and older adults produced more mid-phrase fillers than young adults. Critically, age group interacted with experimental condition, such that older speakers produced disproportionately more mid-phrase fillers than young adults in the TSST compared to the pTSST condition. In sum, the negative effects of the TSST on fluency were generally similar across age, but this specific age-related increase in mid-phrase fillers indicates that older adults’ word retrieval may have been particularly negatively affected. Findings are generally consistent with previous research and add to understanding of how factors internal to the speaker (i.e., demographic, personality, and cognitive variables) and factors external to the speaker (i.e., variables regarding the situation, context, or content of speech) combine to affect speech fluency.

KEYWORDS:

• Speech production
• speech fluency
• word retrieval
• Trier Social Stress Test
• cognitive aging

Acknowledgments

We thank Christopher Schmank, Nichol Castro, and Tony Buchanan for allowing us to transcribe and analyze the speeches from the study on which they were coauthors, and Christian Carde-Guzman, Brittany Chambers, Macey Fegler, U’ilani Schnackenberg, Thomas Scott, Landis Temple, and McKenna Vanhorn for research assistance. This experiment served in partial fulfillment of Marissa Metz’s requirements for completion of the undergraduate honors program in Psychology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Portions of this research were presented at the 2015 meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Boise, ID, the 2015 meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL, and the 2016 Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta GA.

Conflicts of interest

Neither author has any conflicts of interest with regards to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.