Age-related changes in multisensory emotional speech perception: Evidence for a dual-pathway model

Despite consistent reports on age-related declines in emotion perception, existing studies remain unclear about whether aging exerts a direct influence or an indirect effect via other age-related factors. This study examined the direct and indirect pathways through which age influences multisensory emotional speech perception, specifically focusing on the roles of sensory (auditory) and cognitive functions. In 2022-2024, participants (aged 18-82, N = 182) completed two emotional speech perception tests: a cross-channel test pairing prosody with semantics and a cross-modal test that additionally included visual facial expressions. They were also assessed for hearing sensitivity as well as global and specific cognitive functions, including selective attention, working memory, and musical emotion discrimination. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to examine how these age-related auditory and cognitive factors influenced emotional speech perception across different communication channels. In the cross-channel test, age mediated the performance through cognitive functioning and, to a lesser degree, hearing sensitivity, with both pathways stronger for emotional prosody than for semantics. In the cross-modal test, while the indirect effect of age was enhanced and remained most pronounced in prosody compared to the other two channels, it was primarily mediated via cognitive functioning. In addition, age was found to be a significant direct predictor of perceptual performance, especially in the semantic task. Our findings delineate an integrated, dual-pathway model of age-related changes in multisensory emotional speech perception. This involves test-specific direct age effects, especially for semantic processing, and general indirect effects on prosody perception primarily via cognitive functioning and, to a lesser extent, through hearing sensitivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).