Cognitive and neural predictors of speech comprehension in noisy backgrounds in older adults

ABSTRACT

Older adults often experience difficulties comprehending speech in noisy backgrounds, which hearing loss does not fully explain. It remains unknown how cognitive abilities, brain networks, and age-related hearing loss may uniquely contribute to speech in noise comprehension at the sentence level. In 31 older adults, using cognitive measures and resting-state fMRI, we investigated the cognitive and neural predictors of speech comprehension with energetic (broadband noise) and informational masking (multi-speakers) effects. Better hearing thresholds and greater working memory abilities were associated with better speech comprehension with energetic masking. Conversely, faster processing speed and stronger functional connectivity between frontoparietal and language networks were associated with better speech comprehension with informational masking. Our findings highlight the importance of the frontoparietal network in older adults’ ability to comprehend speech in multi-speaker backgrounds, and that hearing loss and working memory in older adults contributes to speech comprehension abilities related to energetic, but not informational masking.

KEYWORDS:

• Speech in noise
• auditory masking
• sentence comprehension
• aging
• resting-state fMRI

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sarah Natale and Dr. Michael Dorman for their assistance in creating the background stimuli. We would also like to thank Dr. Erica Williams for her guidance in the development of the audiometric assessment protocol and for providing training in conducting these assessments. Lastly, we thank Sharmeen Maze at the Keller Center for Imaging Innovation at the BNI for her critical assistance in MRI data acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work and the authors were funded by National Institutes of Health T32 AG000037 (MCF), National Institute on Aging K01 AG047926 (SYS) and Arizona State University.