Auditory Temporal Processes in Aging
Condition: Auditory Perceptual Disorders; Aging Problems
MeSH terms: Auditory Perceptual Disorders; Perceptual Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Older people experience great difficulty understanding speech, especially accented English,
      and this problem is expected to increase with the influx of immigrants who provide services
      to the elderly population. The research examines the underlying factors that contribute to
      older listeners' difficulty understanding accented speech, including those associated with
      age-related hearing loss, changes in processing in auditory pathways in the brain, and
      general cognitive decline. The investigation also evaluates the efficacy of training
      strategies to improve understanding of accented English by older people. Outcomes of this
      research are expected to improve communication between senior citizens and those with whom
      they interact daily, and thereby improve quality of life for the older segment of the
      Nation's population.
    

Detailed description: 
      This research program in speech perception and auditory psychophysics examines the hypothesis
      that many of the predominant difficulties in speech understanding of elderly listeners are
      related to underlying problems in auditory temporal processing. One form of degraded speech
      that is particularly difficult for elderly listeners to perceive is accented English.
      Alterations of speech stress and timing with accent may be viewed as a form of degradation in
      temporal aspects of speech prosody, and this type of temporal distortion is the focus of
      investigation in the next project period. Moreover, psychoacoustic results demonstrate that
      large age-related difficulties in temporal processing exist for the perception of auditory
      tempo and rhythmic characteristics of sequential stimulus patterns featuring a stressed tone.
      Listener processing difficulty could be attributed to peripheral and/or central processing
      mechanisms, as well as various cognitive factors, including the degree of familiarity with
      prosodic features of different native languages. The project examines the relative
      contribution of peripheral hearing impairment, type of stimulus temporal complexity and
      cognitive demand, and the linguistic background experience of listeners on the processing of
      temporal prosody cues in speech and non-speech stimulus patterns. The project associated with
      this clinical trial examines the efficacy of auditory training paradigms with stimuli that
      feature temporal contrasts for improving perception of accented English and non-speech
      sequences by older people. The research described in this application seeks to address one
      goal outlined by the National Institute on Aging: to develop effective interventions to
      maintain health and function and prevent or reduce the burden of age-related diseases,
      disorders, and disabilities. The approach in this research program involves (a) an assessment
      of the problems encountered in daily activities by the elderly population, (b) an analysis of
      specific task demands in relation to individual capabilities, and (c) basic research on
      sensory and perceptual changes with age and on the ameliorating effects of emerging
      technologies (including rehabilitation). This three-dimensional approach is expected to
      further progress toward improving communication and health-related quality of life for senior
      citizens.
    

Intervention name(s): Auditory training with feedback; Listening paradigm with no feedback
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Experimental group receives phoneme-level and sentence-level training with feedback; Active controls listen to acoustic stimuli with no feedback
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Experimental group Active control group Passive control group
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Health Services Research
Keywords: Accented speech perception