Taking the Extra Listening Mile: Processing Spoken Semantic Context Is More Effortful for Older Than Young Adults

Objectives: Older adults use semantic context to generate predictions in speech processing, compensating for aging-related sensory and cognitive changes. This study aimed to gauge aging-related changes in effort exertion related to context use.

Design: The study revisited data from Harel-Arbeli et al. (2023) that used a "visual-world" eye-tracking paradigm. Data on efficiency of context use (response latency and the probability to gaze at the target before hearing it) and effort exertion (pupil dilation) were extracted from a subset of 14 young adults (21 to 27 years old) and 13 older adults (65 to 79 years old).

Results: Both age groups showed a similar pattern of context benefits for response latency and target word predictions, however only the older adults group showed overall increased pupil dilation when listening to context sentences.

Conclusions: Older adults' efficient use of spoken semantic context appears to come at a cost of increased effort exertion.