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Seniors Try So Hard to Hear They Forget What They
Heard
Aug. 13, 2005 Senior citizens with hearing
problems may try so hard to hear they cant remember what they heard.
That is what a new study by Brandeis University researchers concluded.
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The study, published in the latest issue of Current
Directions in Psychological Science, showed that even when older adults
could hear words well enough to repeat them, their ability to memorize
and remember these words was poorer in comparison to other individuals
of the same age with good hearing.
These older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing
loss may expend so much cognitive energy on hearing accurately that
their ability to remember spoken language suffers as a result.
"There are subtle effects of hearing loss on memory
and cognitive function in older adults," said lead author Arthur
Wingfield, Nancy Lurie Marks Professor of Neuroscience at the Volen
National Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University. "The effect
of expending extra effort comprehending words means there are fewer
cognitive resources for higher level comprehension."
"This extra effort in the initial stages of speech
perception uses processing resources that would otherwise be available
for downstream operations, such as encoding the material in memory or
performing higher-level comprehension operations," explained co-authors
Patricia A. Tun and Sandra L. McCoy.
A group of older adults with good hearing and a
group with mild-to-moderate hearing loss participated in the study. Each
participant listened to a fifteen-word list and was asked to remember
only the last three words. All words were delivered at the same volume.
Both groups showed excellent recall for the final word, but the
hearing-loss group displayed poorer recall of the two words preceding
it.
Because both groups could correctly report the
final word, it was reasoned that the hearing-loss group's failure to
remember the other two words was not a result of their inability to
hear/correctly identify them. The authors interpret this as a
demonstration of the effortfulness principle-- the increased effort
required detracted from the cognitive processes of memorizing these
words.
"This study is a wake-up call to anyone who works
with older people, including health care professionals, to be especially
sensitive to how hearing loss can affect cognitive function," said Dr.
Wingfield.
He suggested that individuals who interact with
older people with some hearing loss could modify how they speak by
speaking clearly and pausing after clauses, or chunks of meaning, not
necessarily slowing down speech dramatically.
Source:
Current Directions in Psychological Science, a
journal of the American Psychological Society, presents the latest
advances in theory and research in psychology. This important and timely
journal contains concise reviews spanning all of scientific psychology
and its applications.
The American Psychological Society represents
psychologists advocating science-based research in the public's
interest.
www.psychologicalscience.org
Over the last 15 years Dr. Wingfield and Dr. Tun
have carried out extensive programs of research, funded by National
Institute on Aging, studying effects of aging on speech processing and
memory for spoken language. More recently they have focused on effects
of mild to moderate hearing loss, and how sensory changes interact with
comprehension and memory for speech in younger and older adults.
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