The Impact of Age, Background Noise, Semantic Ambiguity, and Hearing Loss on Recognition Memory for Spoken Sentences
Publication: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 61, Number 3
Pages 740-751
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this study was to determine how background noise, linguistic properties of spoken sentences, and listener abilities (hearing sensitivity and verbal working memory) affect cognitive demand during auditory sentence comprehension.
Method
We tested 30 young adults and 30 older adults. Participants heard lists of sentences in quiet and in 8-talker babble at signal-to-noise ratios of +15 dB and +5 dB, which increased acoustic challenge but left the speech largely intelligible. Half of the sentences contained semantically ambiguous words to additionally manipulate cognitive challenge. Following each list, participants performed a visual recognition memory task in which they viewed written sentences and indicated whether they remembered hearing the sentence previously.
Results
Recognition memory (indexed by d′) was poorer for acoustically challenging sentences, poorer for sentences containing ambiguous words, and differentially poorer for noisy high-ambiguity sentences. Similar patterns were observed for Z-transformed response time data. There were no main effects of age, but age interacted with both acoustic clarity and semantic ambiguity such that older adults' recognition memory was poorer for acoustically degraded high-ambiguity sentences than the young adults'. Within the older adult group, exploratory correlation analyses suggested that poorer hearing ability was associated with poorer recognition memory for sentences in noise, and better verbal working memory was associated with better recognition memory for sentences in noise.
Conclusions
Our results demonstrate listeners' reliance on domain-general cognitive processes when listening to acoustically challenging speech, even when speech is highly intelligible. Acoustic challenge and semantic ambiguity both reduce the accuracy of listeners' recognition memory for spoken sentences.
Supplemental Materials
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Anderson, J. R., & Bower, G. H. (1974). A propositional theory of recognition memory. Memory and Cognition, 2, 406–412.
Awh, E., Vogel, E. K., & Oh, S. H. (2006). Interactions between attention and working memory. Neuroscience, 139, 201–208.
Balota, D. A., & Neely, J. H. (1980). Test-expectancy and word-frequency effects in recall and recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 576–587.
Besser, J., Festen, J. M., Goverts, S. T., Kramer, S. E., & Pichora-Fuller, M. K. (2015). Speech-in-speech listening on the LiSN-S test by older adults with good audiograms depends on cognition and hearing acuity at high frequencies. Ear and Hearing, 36, 24–41.
Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2009). Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 977–990.
Cousins, K. A. Q., Dar, H., Wingfield, A., & Miller, P. (2014). Acoustic masking disrupts time-dependent mechanisms of memory encoding in word-list recall. Memory and Cognition, 42, 622–638.
Craik, F. I. M., Govoni, R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Anderson, N. D. (1996). The effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes in human memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, 159–180.
Davis, M. H., Coleman, M. R., Absalom, A. R., Rodd, J. M., Johnsrude, I. S., Matta, B. F., … Menon, D. K. (2007). Dissociating speech perception and comprehension at reduced levels of awareness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 104, 16032–16037.
Davis, M. H., Ford, M. A., Kherif, F., & Johnsrude, I. S. (2011). Does semantic context benefit speech understanding through “top-down” processes? Evidence from time-resolved sparse fMRI. The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 3914–3932.
Davis, M. H., & Johnsrude, I. S. (2003). Hierarchical processing in spoken language comprehension. Journal of Neuroscience, 23(8), 3423–3431.
DeCaro, R., Peelle, J. E., Grossman, M., & Wingfield, A. (2016). The two sides of sensory-cognitive interactions: Effects of age, hearing acuity, and working memory span on sentence comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 236.
Dubno, J. R., Ahlstrom, J. B., & Horwitz, A. R. (2000). Use of context by young and aged adults with normal hearing. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 538–546.
Eckert, M. A., Menon, V., Walczak, A., Ahlstrom, J., Denslow, S., Horwitz, A., & Dubno, J. R. (2009). At the heart of the ventral attention system: The right anterior insula. Human Brain Mapping, 30, 2530–2541.
Erb, J., Henry, M. J., Eisner, F., & Obleser, J. (2013). The brain dynamics of rapid perceptual adaptation to adverse listening conditions. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 10688–10697.
Erb, J., & Obleser, J. (2013). Upregulation of cognitive control networks in older adults' speech comprehension. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7, 116.
Faust, M. E., Balota, D. A., Spieler, D. H., & Ferraro, F. R. (1999). Individual differences in information-processing rate and amount: Implications for group differences in response latency. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 777–799.
Fernandes, M. A., & Moscovitch, M. (2000). Divided attention and memory: Evidence of substantial interference effects at retrieval and encoding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 155–176.
Gazzaley, A., & Nobre, A. C. (2012). Top-down modulation: Bridging selective attention and working memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 129–135.
Gilbert, R. C., Chandrasekaran, B., & Smiljanic, R. (2014). Recognition memory in noise for speech of varying intelligibility. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135(1), 389–399.
Gordon-Salant, S., & Fitzgibbons, P. J. (2004). Effects of stimulus and noise rate variability on speech perception by younger and older adults. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 115, 1808–1817.
Gosselin, P. A., & Gagné, J.-P. (2011). Older adults expend more listening effort than young adults recognizing speech in noise. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54, 944–958.
Hautus, M. J. (1995). Corrections for extreme proportions and their biasing effects on estimated values of d′. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 27(1), 46–51.
Heinrich, A., Schneider, B. A., & Craik, F. I. M. (2008). Investigating the influence of continuous babble on auditory short-term memory performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 735–751.
Humes, L. E., Kidd, G. R., & Lentz, J. J. (2013). Auditory and cognitive factors underlying individual differences in aided speech-understanding among older adults. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7, 55.
Kalikow, D. N., Stevens, K. N., & Elliott, L. L. (1977). Development of a test of speech intelligibility in noise using sentence materials with controlled word predictability. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 61, 1337–1351.
Kemper, S., & Sumner, A. (2001). The structure of verbal abilities in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 16, 312–322.
Kuchinsky, S. E., Ahlstrom, J. B., Vaden, K. I., Jr., Cute, S. L., Humes, L. E., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2013). Pupil size varies with word listening and response selection difficulty in older adults with hearing loss. Psychophysiology, 50, 23–34.
Kuchinsky, S. E., Vaden, K. I., Jr., Ahlstrom, J. B., Cute, S. L., Humes, L. E., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2016). Task-related vigilance during word recognition in noise for older adults with hearing loss. Experimental Aging Research, 42, 50–66.
Lash, A., Rogers, C. S., Zoller, A., & Wingfield, A. (2013). Expectation and entropy in spoken word recognition: Effects of age and hearing acuity. Experimental Aging Research, 39, 235–253.
Macmillan, N. A., & Creelman, C. D. (2005). Detection theory: A user's guide. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Mattys, S. L., Davis, M. H., Bradlow, A. R., & Scott, S. K. (2012). Speech recognition in adverse conditions: A review. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27, 953–978.
McCoy, S. L., Tun, P. A., Cox, L. C., Colangelo, M., Stewart, R., & Wingfield, A. (2005). Hearing loss and perceptual effort: Downstream effects on older adults' memory for speech. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58(1), 22–33.
Miller, G. A., Heise, G. A., & Lichten, W. (1951). The intelligibility of speech as a function of the context of the test materials. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41, 329–335.
Miller, P., & Wingfield, A. (2010). Distinct effects of perceptual quality on auditory word recognition, memory formation and recall in a neural model of sequential memory. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 4, 14.
Murphy, D. R., Craik, F. I. M., Li, K. Z. H., & Schneider, B. A. (2000). Comparing the effects of aging and background noise on short-term memory performance. Psychology and Aging, 15, 323–334.
Nasreddine, Z. S., Phillips, N. A., Bédirian, V., Charbonneau, S., Whitehead, V., Collin, I., … Chertkow, H. (2005). The Montréal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA: A brief screening tool for mild cognitive impairment. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 53, 695–699.
Ng, E. H. N., Rudner, M., Lunner, T., Pedersen, M. S., & Rönnberg, J. (2013). Effects of noise and working memory capacity on memory processing of speech for hearing-aid users. International Journal of Audiology, 52, 433–441.
Obleser, J. (2014). Putting the listening brain in context. Language and Linguistics Compass, 8, 646–658.
Obleser, J., Wise, R. J. S., Dresner, M. A., & Scott, S. K. (2007). Functional integration across brain regions improves speech perception under adverse listening conditions. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(9), 2283–2289.
Oswald, F. L., McAbee, S. T., Redick, T. S., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2015). The development of a short domain-general measure of working memory capacity. Behavior Research Methods, 47, 1343–1355.
Peelle, J. E. (2017). Listening effort: How the cognitive consequences of acoustic challenge are reflected in brain and behavior. Ear and Hearing. Advance online publication.
Peelle, J. E., & Wingfield, A. (2016). The neural consequences of age-related hearing loss. Trends in Neurosciences, 39, 486–497.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Kramer, S. E., Eckert, M. A., Edwards, B., Hornsby, B. W. Y., Humes, L. E., … Wingfield, A. (2016). Hearing impairment and cognitive energy: The framework for understanding effortful listening (FUEL). Ear and Hearing, 37, 5S–27S.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Schneider, B. A., & Daneman, M. (1995). How young and old adults listen to and remember speech in noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97(1), 593–608.
Piquado, T., Benichov, J. I., Brownell, H., & Wingfield, A. (2012). The hidden effect of hearing acuity on speech recall, and compensatory effects of self-paced listening. International Journal of Audiology, 51, 576–583.
Piquado, T., Cousins, K. A. Q., Wingfield, A., & Miller, P. (2010). Effects of degraded sensory input on memory for speech: Behavioral data and a test of biologically constrained computational models. Brain Research Bulletin, 1365, 48–65.
Rabbitt, P. M. A. (1968). Channel capacity, intelligibility and immediate memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20, 241–248.
Rodd, J. M., Davis, M. H., & Johnsrude, I. S. (2005). The neural mechanisms of speech comprehension: fMRI studies of semantic ambiguity. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 1261–1269.
Rodd, J. M., Johnsrude, I. S., & Davis, M. H. (2010). The role of domain-general frontal systems in language comprehension: Evidence from dual-task interference and semantic ambiguity. Brain and Language, 115, 182–188.
Rodd, J. M., Johnsrude, I. S., & Davis, M. H. (2012). Dissociating frontotemporal contributions to semantic ambiguity resolution in spoken sentences. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 1761–1773.
Rodd, J. M., Longe, O. A., Randall, B., & Tyler, L. K. (2010). The functional organisation of the fronto-temporal language system: Evidence from syntactic and semantic ambiguity. Neuropsychologia, 48, 1324–1335.
Rogers, C. S., & Wingfield, A. (2015). Stimulus-independent semantic bias misdirects word recognition in older adults. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138, EL26–EL30.
Rönnberg, J., Lunner, T., Zekveld, A., Sörqvist, P., Danielsson, H., Lyxell, B., … Rudner, M. (2013). The ease of language understanding (ELU) model: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical advances. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7, 31.
Rudner, M., Rönnberg, J., & Lunner, T. (2011). Working memory supports listening in noise for persons with hearing impairment. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 22, 156–167.
Schneider, B. A., Daneman, M., Murphy, D. R., & Kwong See, S. (2000). Listening to discourse in distracting settings: The effects of aging. Psychology and Aging, 15, 110–125.
Strand, J., Simenstad, A., Cooperman, A., & Rowe, J. (2014). Grammatical context constrains lexical competition in spoken word recognition. Memory and Cognition, 42, 676–687.
Tun, P. A., McCoy, S., & Wingfield, A. (2009). Aging, hearing acuity, and the attentional costs of effortful listening. Psychology and Aging, 24, 761–766.
Vaden, K. I., Jr., Kuchinsky, S. E., Ahlstrom, J. B., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2015). Cortical activity predicts which older adults recognize speech in noise and when. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35, 3929–3937.
Vaden, K. I., Jr., Kuchinsky, S. E., Ahlstrom, J. B., Teubner-Rhodes, S. E., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2016). Cingulo-opercular function during word recognition in noise for older adults with hearing loss. Experimental Aging Research, 42, 67–82.
Vaden, K. I., Jr., Kuchinsky, S. E., Cute, S. L., Ahlstrom, J. B., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2013). The cingulo-opercular network provides word-recognition benefit. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 18979–18986.
Vaden, K. I., Jr., Teubner-Rhodes, S., Ahlstrom, J. B., Dubno, J. R., & Eckert, M. A. (2017). Cingulo-opercular activity affects incidental memory encoding for speech in noise. NeuroImage, 157, 381–387.
Van Casteren, M., & Davis, M. H. (2007). Match: A program to assist in matching the conditions of factorial experiments. Behavioral Research Methods, 39(4), 973–978.
Van Engen, K. J., Chandrasekaran, B., & Smiljanic, R. (2012). Effects of speech clarity on recognition memory for spoken sentences. PLoS One, 7, e43753.
Verhaeghen, P. (2003). Aging and vocabulary score: A meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging, 18(2), 332–339.
Ward, C. M., Rogers, C. S., Van Engen, K. J., & Peelle, J. E. (2016). Effects of age, acoustic challenge, and verbal working memory on recall of narrative speech. Experimental Aging Research, 42, 126–144.
Wild, C. J., Yusuf, A., Wilson, D., Peelle, J. E., Davis, M. H., & Johnsrude, I. S. (2012). Effortful listening: The processing of degraded speech depends critically on attention. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 14010–14021.
Wingfield, A., Aberdeen, J. S., & Stine, E. A. (1991). Word onset gating and linguistic context in spoken word recognition by young and elderly adults. Journals of Gerontology, 46(3), 127–129.
Wingfield, A., McCoy, S. L., Peelle, J. E., Tun, P. A., & Cox, C. (2006). Effects of adult aging and hearing loss on comprehension of rapid speech varying in syntactic complexity. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 17, 487–497.
Wingfield, A., Tun, P. A., & McCoy, S. L. (2005). Hearing loss in older adulthood: What it is and how it interacts with cognitive performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 144–148.
Yonelinas, A. P. (2002). The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 441–517.
Yonelinas, A. P., & Jacoby, L. L. (2012). The process-dissociation approach two decades later: Convergence, boundary conditions, and new directions. Memory and Cognition, 40, 663–680.
Zachary, R. (1986). Shipley Institute for Living Scale. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.
Zekveld, A. A., & Kramer, S. E. (2014). Cognitive processing load across a wide range of listening conditions: Insights from pupillometry. Psychophysiology, 51, 277–284.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 61 • Number 3 • March 2018
Pages: 740-751
PubMed: 29450493
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
History
- Received: Feb 27, 2017
- Revised: Aug 28, 2017
- Accepted: Sep 20, 2017
- Published in issue: Mar 15, 2018
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Metrics
View all metricsCitations
Download article citation data for:
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.
Citing Literature
- Grace Szatkowski, Pamela Elizabeth Souza, Evaluation of Communication Outcomes With Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids, Ear & Hearing, 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001608, 46, 3, (653-672), (2024).
- Erin D. Smith, Lori L. Holt, Frederic Dick, A one-man bilingual cocktail party: linguistic and non-linguistic effects on bilinguals’ speech recognition in Mandarin and English, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 10.1186/s41235-024-00562-w, 9, 1, (2024).
- Jack W. Silcox, Karen Bennett, Allyson Copeland, Sarah Hargus Ferguson, Brennan R. Payne, The Costs (and Benefits?) of Effortful Listening for Older Adults: Insights from Simultaneous Electrophysiology, Pupillometry, and Memory, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10.1162/jocn_a_02161, 36, 6, (997-1020), (2024).
- Silvia Murgia, Listening challenges in children: Comprehension and effort in noisy and voice-degraded conditions, , 10.1016/bs.plm.2024.07.004, (157-217), (2024).
- Christian Herrera, Nicole Whittle, Marjorie R. Leek, Christian Brodbeck, Grace Lee, Caleb Barcenas, Samuel Barnes, Barbara Holshouser, Alex Yi, Jonathan H. Venezia, Cortical networks for recognition of speech with simultaneous talkers, Hearing Research, 10.1016/j.heares.2023.108856, 437, (108856), (2023).
- Katrina S. McClannahan, Amelia Mainardi, Austin Luor, Yi-Fang Chiu, Mitchell S. Sommers, Jonathan E. Peelle, Spoken Word Recognition in Listeners with Mild Dementia Symptoms, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 10.3233/JAD-215606, 90, 2, (749-759), (2022).
- Brittney L. Carter, Frédéric Apoux, Eric W. Healy, The Influence of Noise Type and Semantic Predictability on Word Recall in Older Listeners and Listeners With Hearing Impairment, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00075, 65, 9, (3548-3565), (2022).
- Arefeh Sherafati, Noel Dwyer, Aahana Bajracharya, Mahlega Samira Hassanpour, Adam T Eggebrecht, Jill B Firszt, Joseph P Culver, Jonathan E Peelle, Prefrontal cortex supports speech perception in listeners with cochlear implants, eLife, 10.7554/eLife.75323, 11, (2022).
- Hannah A. Crandell, Jack W. Silcox, Sarah H. Ferguson, Monika Lohani, Brennan R. Payne, The Effects of Captioning Errors, Background Noise, and Hearing Loss on Memory for Text-Captioned Speech, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00416, 65, 6, (2364-2390), (2022).
- Huasu Li, Research on Feature Extraction and Chinese Translation Method of Internet-of-Things English Terminology, Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 10.1155/2022/6344571, 2022, (1-11), (2022).
View Options
Sign In Options
ASHA member? If so, log in with your ASHA website credentials for full access.
Member Login