Audiovisual Speech Perception in Aging Cochlear Implant Users and Age-Matched Nonimplanted Adults

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Neuroscience
• Gerontology

Background:

• Older adults without cochlear implants (CIs) show enhanced multisensory benefits in audiovisual speech identification compared to younger adults.
• These benefits help older adults compensate for age-related declines in unisensory (auditory and visual) speech perception.
• The extent to which older CI users rely on these multisensory benefits remains largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate age-related differences in cross-sensory and multisensory benefits for audiovisual speech identification.
• To compare these benefits in aging cochlear implant (CI) users versus age-matched non-CI users.

Main Methods:

• Twenty middle-aged to older CI users and 35 age-matched non-CI users participated.
• Participants identified disyllabic words presented auditory-alone, visual-alone, or audiovisually.
• Speech stimuli were presented under varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) to accommodate device differences and avoid ceiling/floor effects.

Main Results:

• Both CI users and non-CI users exhibited expected differences in unisensory and audiovisual speech identification.
• Visual enhancement of auditory speech (VE) and auditory-visual multisensory enhancement (AVE) were significantly greater in CI users compared to non-CI users.
• Multisensory enhancement (AVE) increased with age in both older CI users and non-CI users.

Conclusions:

• Cochlear implant (CI) users, similar to non-CI users, increase their reliance on multisensory integration as they age.
• Older CI users may derive greater benefits from audiovisual speech input than their non-CI counterparts.
• Effective CI use in older adults may depend on their ability to integrate visual information, with a potentially higher dependence on visual input for older CI users.