Working Memory Training and Speech in Noise Comprehension in Older Adults.

Authors

Rachel V Wayne, Department of Psychology, Queen's University Kingston, ON, Canada
Cheryl Hamilton, Department of Psychology, Queen's University Kingston, ON, Canada
Julia Jones Huyck, Speech Pathology and Audiology, Kent State University Kent, OH, USA
Ingrid S Johnsrude, Department of Psychology, Queen's UniversityKingston, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western OntarioLondon, ON, CanadaFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2016

Journal

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

Volume

8

First Page

49

Last Page

49

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.3389/fnagi.2016.00049

Abstract

Understanding speech in the presence of background sound can be challenging for older adults. Speech comprehension in noise appears to depend on working memory and executive-control processes (e.g., Heald and Nusbaum, 2014), and their augmentation through training may have rehabilitative potential for age-related hearing loss. We examined the efficacy of adaptive working-memory training (Cogmed; Klingberg et al., 2002) in 24 older adults, assessing generalization to other working-memory tasks (near-transfer) and to other cognitive domains (far-transfer) using a cognitive test battery, including the Reading Span test, sensitive to working memory (e.g., Daneman and Carpenter, 1980). We also assessed far transfer to speech-in-noise performance, including a closed-set sentence task (Kidd et al., 2008). To examine the effect of cognitive training on benefit obtained from semantic context, we also assessed transfer to open-set sentences; half were semantically coherent (high-context) and half were semantically anomalous (low-context). Subjects completed 25 sessions (0.5-1 h each; 5 sessions/week) of both adaptive working memory training and placebo training over 10 weeks in a crossover design. Subjects' scores on the adaptive working-memory training tasks improved as a result of training. However, training did not transfer to other working memory tasks, nor to tasks recruiting other cognitive domains. We did not observe any training-related improvement in speech-in-noise performance. Measures of working memory correlated with the intelligibility of low-context, but not high-context, sentences, suggesting that sentence context may reduce the load on working memory. The Reading Span test significantly correlated only with a test of visual episodic memory, suggesting that the Reading Span test is not a pure-test of working memory, as is commonly assumed.