Auditory and auditory-visual recognition of clear and conversational speech by older adults

Research has shown that speech articulated in a clear manner is easier to understand than conversationally spoken speech in both the auditory-only (A-only) and auditory-visual (AV) domains. Because this research has been conducted using younger adults, it is unknown whether age-related changes in auditory and/or visual processing affect older adults' ability to benefit when a talker speaks clearly. The present study examined how speaking mode (clear vs conversational) and presentation mode (A-only vs AV) influenced nonsense sentence recognition by older listeners. Results showed that neither age nor hearing loss limited the amount of benefit that older adults obtained from a talker speaking clearly. However, age was inversely correlated with identification of AV (but not A-only) conversational speech, even when pure-tone thresholds were controlled statistically.