Card playing enhances speech perception among aging adults: comparison with aging musicians

Abstract

Speech perception and auditory processing have been shown to be enhanced among aging musicians as compared to nonmusicians. In the present study, the aim was to test whether these functions are also enhanced among those who are engaged in a non-musical mentally challenging leisure activity (card playing). Three groups of 23 aging adults, aged 60-80 years, were recruited for the study: Musicians, Card players, and Controls. Participants were matched for age, gender, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III Matrix Reasoning, and Digit Span scores. Their performance was measured using auditory spectral and spatial temporal order judgment tests, and four tasks of speech perception in conditions of: no background noise, background noise of speech frequencies, background noise of white noise, and 60% compressed speech. Musicians were better in auditory and speech perception than the other two groups. Card players were similar to Controls in auditory perception tasks, but were better in the speech perception tasks. Non-musician aging adults may be able to improve their speech perception ability by engaging in leisure activity requiring cognitive effort.

The frontotemporal organization of the arcuate fasciculus and its relationship with speech perception in young and older amateur singers and non‐singers

“…This finding is consistent with a study showing no benefit of a 6‐month piano training in older adults (Fleming et al, 2019). However, it is in contrast to previous aging studies showing that playing a musical instrument as amateurs (Fostick, 2019; Zendel & Alain, 2012) or professionals (Bidelman & Alain, 2015; Parbery‐Clark et al, 2011) have small but positive effects on SPiN. It is also at odds with longitudinal studies that have shown that attending a short amateur training, such as a 6‐month piano‐based training (Zendel et al, 2019) or a 10 weeks of choral singing (Dubinsky et al, 2019), positively affect SPiN.…”

“…Here we used a syllable discrimination task and we found no global singing effect on SPiN. The studies showing a behavioral effect of musical activities on SPiN used sentences or word repetition tasks (Dubinsky et al, 2019; Fostick, 2019; Parbery‐Clark et al, 2011; Zendel et al, 2019; Zendel & Alain, 2012), with the exception of Bidelman and Alain (2015), which used a vowel‐continuum categorization task. The other previous study that did not find musical advantage used a sentences‐picture‐naming task (Fleming et al, 2019).…”

“…Another possibility is that singing impacts SPiN differently than does musical instrument playing. The majority of studies that examined the impact of musical activities on SPiN in aging have focused on instrumentalists (Alain et al, 2014; Bidelman & Alain, 2015; Fleming et al, 2019; Fostick, 2019; Parbery‐Clark et al, 2011; White‐Schwoch et al, 2013; Zendel et al, 2019; Zendel & Alain, 2012). Only one study has examined the impact of choral training (Dubinsky et al, 2019).…”

“…Because of the lack of consensus regarding underlying SPiN mechanisms, treatment options for SPiN difficulties are scarce. A growing body of evidence suggests that playing a musical instrument (Alain, Zendel, Hutka, & Bidelman, 2014; Bidelman & Alain, 2015; Fleming, Belleville, Peretz, West, & Zendel, 2019; Fostick, 2019; Parbery‐Clark, Strait, Anderson, Hittner, & Kraus, 2011; White‐Schwoch, Woodruff Carr, Anderson, Strait, & Kraus, 2013; Zendel & Alain, 2012; Zendel, West, Belleville, & Peretz, 2019) or singing in a choir (Dubinsky, Wood, Nespoli, & Russo, 2019) is associated with SPiN benefits in aging, but the mechanism of action for this effect is unclear. Playing a musical instrument and singing strongly rely on auditory‐motor integration, whereby accurate mapping between a sound and the motor commands used to produce that sound is necessary to monitor performance and perform fine sensory‐motor adjustments.…”

Neurophysiological improvements in speech-in-noise task after short-term choir training in older adults

“…Additionally, Ruggles et al, [ 22 ] observed a significant correlation in speech-in-noise abilities with years of music training in adults. In older adults, musicians additionally out-perform non-musicians in sentence-in-noise [ 23 , 24 ] and word-in-noise discrimination [ 23 , 25 ]. Fostick, 2019 demonstrated that the musician advantage for words-in-noise discrimination remained when comparing older adult musicians to life-long card players.…”