The possible role of brain rhythms in perceiving fast speech: Evidence from adult aging

Abstract

The rhythms of speech and the time scales of linguistic units (e.g., syllables) correspond remarkably to cortical oscillations. Previous research has demonstrated that in young adults, the intelligibility of time-compressed speech can be rescued by “repackaging” the speech signal through the regular insertion of silent gaps to restore correspondence to the theta oscillator. This experiment tested whether this same phenomenon can be demonstrated in older adults, who show age-related changes in cortical oscillations. The results demonstrated a similar phenomenon for older adults, but that the “rescue point” of repackaging is shifted, consistent with a slowing of theta oscillations.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2018
Source ID
10.1121/1.5054905

Entities

People

  • Arthur Wingfield
  • Lana R. Penn
  • Nicole D. Ayasse
  • Oded Ghitza

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Boston University
  • Brandeis University
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences
  • National Institute on Aging

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Molecular and Cellular Biology
  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.