Aging, Hearing Acuity, and the Attentional Costs of Effortful Listening

Overview

Journal Psychol Aging

Publisher American Psychological Association

Specialty Geriatrics

Date 2009 Sep 11

PMID 19739934

Citations 187

Authors

Patricia A Tun

Sandra McCoy

Arthur Wingfield

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A dual-task interference paradigm was used to investigate the effect of perceptual effort on recall of spoken word lists by young and older adults with good hearing and with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. In addition to poorer recall accuracy, listeners with hearing loss, especially older adults, showed larger secondary task costs while recalling the word lists even though the stimuli were presented at a sound intensity that allowed correct word identification. Findings support the hypothesis that extra effort at the sensory-perceptual level attendant to hearing loss has negative consequences to downstream recall, an effect that may be further magnified with increased age.

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