Effects of age, word frequency, and noise on the time course of spoken word recognition

This study assessed the effects of age, lexical frequency, and noise on the time course of lexical activation during spoken word recognition. Participants (41 young adults and 39 older adults) performed a visual world word recognition task while we monitored their gaze position. On each trial, four phonologically-unrelated pictures appeared on the screen. A target word was presented following a carrier phrase (“Click on the ________”), at which point participants were instructed to use the mouse to click on the picture that corresponded to the target word. High- and low-frequency words were presented in quiet and in noise at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of +3 dB. Results show that, even in the absence of phonological competitors in the visual array, high-frequency words were fixated more quickly than low-frequency words by both listener groups. Young adults were generally faster to fixate on targets compared to older adults, but the pattern of interactions among noise, lexical frequency, and listener age show that the behavior of young adults in a small amount of noise largely matches older adult behavior.

本研究旨在评估年龄、词汇频率以及噪声对口语词汇识别过程中词汇激活时间进程的影响。参与者包括41名青年和39名老年成人，他们在执行视觉世界词汇识别任务的同时，其注视位置被我们所监控。在每一试验中，屏幕上呈现四张语音无关的图片。随后，在载语短语（“点击 ________”）之后呈现目标词汇，此时参与者被指示使用鼠标点击与目标词汇相对应的图片。高频和低频词汇在安静和噪声环境中以+3 dB的信噪比（SNR）呈现。结果显示，即使在视觉阵列中没有语音竞争者的情况下，高频词汇也被两组听者更快地注视。与老年成人相比，青年成人通常对目标的注视速度更快，但噪声、词汇频率和听者年龄之间的交互作用模式表明，在少量噪声中，青年成人的行为与老年成人的行为大致相符。