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Related Experiment Video

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Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

Word intelligibility and age predict visual cortex activity during word listening.

Stefanie E Kuchinsky¹, Kenneth I Vaden, Noam I Keren

¹Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA.

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)

|August 25, 2011

Summary

Older adults show increased visual cortex activation when listening to speech, unlike younger adults who suppress it. This age-related cross-modal activation suggests reduced inhibition impacts auditory processing.

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Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Aging
Auditory Perception

Background:

Older adults experience increased distractibility during speech comprehension in challenging environments.
This may stem from reduced inhibition of irrelevant sensory information.
Younger adults typically suppress visual cortex activity when listening, but this is less understood in older adults.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the effects of aging and stimulus intelligibility on cross-modal sensory processing during speech perception.
To determine if older adults exhibit reduced visual cortex suppression or compensatory activation when listening.

Main Methods:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study participants during a word listening task.
The study examined brain activity in auditory and visual cortices in relation to age and word intelligibility.

Main Results:

Both increasing age and decreasing word intelligibility independently increased visual cortex engagement.
Auditory and visual cortices showed functional connectivity during word listening, with age-dependent patterns.
Younger adults deactivated visual cortex while activating auditory cortex; older adults synchronously activated both.

Conclusions:

Age and stimulus intelligibility additively modulate cross-modal suppression and activation in the brain.
Reduced inhibition in older adults may lead to less suppression and more cross-modal activation during auditory tasks.
Findings suggest a shift in sensory processing strategies with aging.