Auditory temporal processes, speech perception and aging

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his program of studies in speech perception and psychoacousticsexamines the hypothesis that many of he elderly listener's difficulties in understanding speech are associated with deficits in auditory temporal processing. The current investigations and those planned for the extension period examine the problems of elderly listeners in understanding accented English, and the nature of deficits in associatedtemporal processing tasks. Age-related differences in recognition of accented English have been observed(Burda et al., 2003), although the factors that contribute to this age effect are unknown. The experiments will probe ¿ecognition of English sentences spoken by native Spanish talkers, because Spanish is the native language of the majority of immigrants in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003, 2004). Alterations in the duration of acoustic cues for speech segments (phonemes); as well as alterations in the overall prosody (timing structure) of the spoken message, are major characteristics of accented English. Hence, accented English can be viewed as a form of temporally altered speech that should be quite difficult for elderly listeners to perceive accurately. The early experimental stages examine the relative importance of temporally altered segmental cues vs. sequence timing cues in speech and non-speech signals, as these cues relate to recognition of accented English. The later stages evaluate age-related differences in the effects of distracting information on perceiving temporally altered signals and the potential benefits of training on the ability to perceive critical temporal cues necessary for accurate perception. The results should elucidate the nature of communication deficits experienced by elderly listeners in understanding accented English, and will suggest methods to improve their understanding of this form of altered speech, which they are likely to encounter during communication with non-native talkers who frequently work in the service sector (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).