Linguistic masking release in young and older adults with age-appropriate hearing status

Past studies of speech-on-speech masking in young adults (YA) indicate that the intelligibility of masked speech can improve if the target and masker speech are in different languages. Current work investigated whether a linguistic masking release is obtained in older adults (OA) with age-typical hearing abilities. Participants listened to English sentences in the presence of two-talker Spanish or English maskers. A similar masking release with Spanish-language maskers was obtained for OA and YA listeners, despite greater accuracy by YA listeners. In speech-on-speech masking, older listeners can thus improve speech intelligibility by utilizing nonenergetic linguistic differences between the target and masker speech.