Recognition of time-compressed speech does not predict recognition of natural fast-rate speech by older listeners

Abstract

This study investigated whether recognition of time-compressed speech predicts recognition of natural fast-rate speech, and whether this relationship is influenced by listener age. High and low context sentences were presented to younger and older normal-hearing adults at a normal speech rate, naturally fast speech rate, and fast rate implemented by time compressing the normal-rate sentences. Recognition of time-compressed sentences over-estimated recognition of natural fast sentences for both groups, especially for older listeners. The findings suggest that older listeners are at a much greater disadvantage when listening to natural fast speech than would be predicted by recognition performance for time-compressed speech.

Speech rate effects on the processing of conversational speech across the adult life span

“…Aylett and Turk, 2004). This effect of less clear articulation was also particularly present in the study by Gordon-Salant et al (2014), who found that older and younger adults had more difficulty with naturally produced fast speech than with artificially speeded speech. Whereas younger and older adults showed equal performance for the normal-rate speech in their study, older adults performed more poorly than younger adults both for the timecompressed and naturally fast materials (thus again showing an age  speech rate interaction).…”

“…Their results showed generally better comprehension scores for naturally speeded up or slowed down materials than for unselectively compressed/expanded speech, suggesting that artificial time compression presents a more difficult listening condition than naturally increased speech rate. In contrast, a recent study (Gordon-Salant et al, 2014) has shown that the recognition of artificially timecompressed read sentences seems to over-estimate the recognition of natural fast-rate speech (see also Janse, 2004). Gordon-Salant and colleagues found that both younger and older adults showed better sentence recognition performance for artificially speeded speech (originally read at a normal rate) than for natural fast-rate sentences read aloud by a talker at a very fast rate.…”

“…Gordon-Salant and colleagues found that both younger and older adults showed better sentence recognition performance for artificially speeded speech (originally read at a normal rate) than for natural fast-rate sentences read aloud by a talker at a very fast rate. However, what may be crucial is whether instructing talkers to read out sentences at their ceiling rate (as in Gordon-Salant et al, 2014 andJanse, 2004) is representative of rate variation as observed in conversational speech in which speakers themselves habitually speak or choose to speak at a particular rate. Unlike artificially timecompressed speech, instructing talkers to speak as fast as they can generally involves less clear articulation because most speakers are only able to speed up their speech rate through reduction of segments and syllables.…”

Teste de fala comprimida em idosos

“…This may have occurred because, after compression, consonant encounters practically disappear, making it difficult to discriminate (12) . The incorrect answers of the elderly may be associated with coarticulation, which produces overlapping segments of speech with consequent difficulty to reach the phonemic target (14) . It is also known that, from the age of 60, degenerative processes of normal aging arise and decrease the intelligibility of speech, especially when speech becomes faster or is spoken in another language (25) .…”

“…In the international literature, one study was found addressing the time-compressed speech test in the elderly, in which the results suggest that the elderly are at a disadvantage compared to young people to hear at faster speech rates (14) .…”