One voice too many: adult age differences in language processing with different types of distracting sounds.

An experiment is reported that investigated factors that might contribute to age differences in the ability to process spoken language under conditions of competition from various types of background noise. Age differences in recall of spoken sentences were shown to depend on the type of background noise as well as its intensity. Increased intensity levels of just one competing speaker produced differentially greater impairment in older adults than in young adults. Analyses showed that listening performance was predicted not only by individual differences in hearing ability but also by speed of processing, which underscores the combined role of age-related auditory and cognitive changes in processing spoken language.