Listening to discourse in distracting settings: The effects of aging

Younger and older adults listened to discourse in quiet and in conversation al noise, before answering questions concerning the material. Some question s required listeners to recall specific details; others were of a more inte grative nature. When the listening situation was adjusted for individual di fferences in hearing, younger and older adults were equally adept at rememb ering the gist of the passages in both quiet and in two levels of noise. Th e two age groups also did not differ with respect to memory for specific de tails when listening in quiet or in a moderate level of noise, even when re quired to perform a concurrent task. Only at the loudest noise level did yo unger adults tend to recall more detail than older adults. However, when no adjustments were made to compensate for the poorer hearing of older adults (all participants tested under identical listening conditions), older adul ts could not recall as much detail as younger adults, either in quiet or in noise. The results indicate that the speech-comprehension difficulties of older adults primarily reflect declines in hearing rather than in cognitive ability.