The effects of time compression and time expansion on passage comprehension by elderly listeners

The purpose of the investigation was to examine the comprehension performance of elderly listeners in response to rate-altered passages. A group of 56 persons was divided equally into two groups: young-old (65-74) and old-old (75-84). Experimental stimuli included four sets of test passages and questions that had been equalized for difficulty using three trial groups of subjects. Passages were presented at 60% time compression, 0% alteration (normal rate), and at 140% and 180% time expansion. Results indicated that young-old and old-old listeners did not differ significantly in mean passage comprehension scores at the normal rate and that both groups had significantly poorer comprehension at 60% time compression than at each of the other three presentation rates. Young-old subjects had better comprehension at 140% expansion and significantly better comprehension at 180% expansion compared with their performance at 0%. However, old-old subjects experienced nonsignificantly improved comprehension at 140% time expansion and were affected detrimentally by further expansion to 180%. Results are compared with those of prior investigations of sentence comprehension and are discussed with an emphasis on the heterogeneity of elderly listeners.