The goal of this study was to identify specific neurocognitive deficits that are associated
with older listeners' difficulty understanding rapid speech. Older listeners performed
speech recognition tests comprised of time-compressed sentences with and without context,
and on a neurocognitive battery aimed specifically at testing working memory, processing
speed, and attention. A principle component analysis identified three main cognitive
components as follows: a sequencing working memory (WM-S) component, a nonsequencing
working memory (WM-NS) component, and a processing speed (PS) component. Each of the
cognitive component scores was divided into high, mid, and low categories. Sentence
performance of the cognitive subgroups was compared within each component. The results
showed that, with hearing loss and age accounted for, the cognitive score groups differed
similarly on the sentence condition scores also at 50 and 60% time compression, particularly
on the subgroups of the WM-S component. The results suggest that deficits in a separate
working memory function identified as sequencing were associated with differences
in ability to understand time-compressed speech in this study.
Key Words
Aging - cognition - memory - speech recognition
