TY - JOUR
T1 - Older Adults Can Inhibit High-Probability Competitors in Speech Recognition
AU - Stine, Elizabeth A.L.
AU - Wingfield, Arthur
N1 - Funding Information:
* This work was supported by grants R29 AGO8382 and R37 AGO4517 from the National Institute on Aging. We wish to thank Sarah Wayland, Cindy Lahar, and Joshua Laff for assistance with subject testing. Address correspondence to: Elizabeth A. L. Stine, Department of Psychology, Conant Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. Accepted for publication: November 15, 1993.
PY - 1994/6/1
Y1 - 1994/6/1
N2 - Younger and older adults identified a series of target words spoken in sentence contexts from their onsets only (i.e., word-onset gating). Sentences were drawn from published norms so that the contextual probabilities of the final words were known. The target words were always the second most probable responses to the sentence contexts, and the probabilities of the target words and the most likely alternatives were systematically varied. Results showed that older adults required more word-onset information for correct recognition, and their responses were more affected by the probability of the occurrence of the target word, supporting previous suggestions that older listeners differentially rely on contextual support in spoken word recognition. Contrary to the Inhibition Hypothesis, however, that older adults have especial difficulty suppressing irrelevant information once it is activited, elders’ ability to recognize the target was not particularly disrupted by the presence of a high-probability competitor.
AB - Younger and older adults identified a series of target words spoken in sentence contexts from their onsets only (i.e., word-onset gating). Sentences were drawn from published norms so that the contextual probabilities of the final words were known. The target words were always the second most probable responses to the sentence contexts, and the probabilities of the target words and the most likely alternatives were systematically varied. Results showed that older adults required more word-onset information for correct recognition, and their responses were more affected by the probability of the occurrence of the target word, supporting previous suggestions that older listeners differentially rely on contextual support in spoken word recognition. Contrary to the Inhibition Hypothesis, however, that older adults have especial difficulty suppressing irrelevant information once it is activited, elders’ ability to recognize the target was not particularly disrupted by the presence of a high-probability competitor.
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U2 - 10.1080/09289919408251456
DO - 10.1080/09289919408251456
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84972914613
SN - 1382-5585
VL - 1
SP - 152
EP - 157
JO - Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition
JF - Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition
IS - 2
ER -