Fostick Leah
Department of Communication Disorders, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Eur J Ageing. 2019 Apr 13;16(4):481-489. doi: 10.1007/s10433-019-00512-2. eCollection 2019 Dec.
Speech perception and auditory processing have been shown to be enhanced among aging musicians as compared to non-musicians. In the present study, the aim was to test whether these functions are also enhanced among those who are engaged in a non-musical mentally challenging leisure activity (card playing). Three groups of 23 aging adults, aged 60-80 years, were recruited for the study: Musicians, Card players, and Controls. Participants were matched for age, gender, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III Matrix Reasoning, and Digit Span scores. Their performance was measured using auditory spectral and spatial temporal order judgment tests, and four tasks of speech perception in conditions of: no background noise, background noise of speech frequencies, background noise of white noise, and 60% compressed speech. Musicians were better in auditory and speech perception than the other two groups. Card players were similar to Controls in auditory perception tasks, but were better in the speech perception tasks. Non-musician aging adults may be able to improve their speech perception ability by engaging in leisure activity requiring cognitive effort.
与非音乐家相比，研究表明老年音乐家的言语感知和听觉处理能力有所增强。在本研究中，目的是测试在从事非音乐性智力挑战性休闲活动（打牌）的人群中，这些功能是否也会增强。研究招募了三组年龄在60至80岁之间的23名老年人：音乐家组、打牌者组和对照组。参与者在年龄、性别、韦氏成人智力量表第三版矩阵推理和数字广度得分方面进行了匹配。使用听觉频谱和空间时间顺序判断测试以及在以下条件下的四项言语感知任务来测量他们的表现：无背景噪音、语音频率背景噪音、白噪音背景噪音和60%压缩语音。音乐家在听觉和言语感知方面比其他两组更好。打牌者在听觉感知任务中与对照组相似，但在言语感知任务中表现更好。非音乐家的老年人可能能够通过从事需要认知努力的休闲活动来提高他们的言语感知能力。
