Influence of sentence context on speech perception in young and older adults.

This study investigated the ability of young and older adults to use contextual cues to understand speech in ordinary listening situations. Key word recognition scores were obtained with the Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) test. Sentence lists contained 50 key words preceded by a high predictability (HP), low predictability (LP), or a carrier phrase (CP) context accompanied by a varying background of multitalker babble. Comparison of the low context items vs the number of meaningfully rich items correctly identified provided an index of the listener's ability to use contextual information in the HP sentences. The LP and CP score reflected the individual's ability to recognize items based only on the acoustic-phonetic information of the key words. Most individuals were able to take some advantage of contextual cues in everyday sentences; however, the older listeners were more adversely affected by background noise than younger listeners. For clinical utilization of the SPIN test, further research is needed to develop normative data as a function of age to make it an "age-fair" test.