Communication as Multi-Tasking in Middle- and Late Adulthood

Participating in spoken conversation constitutes a multitasking situation with concurrent demands on sensorimotor (auditory, postural) and cognitive functioning (storing and retrieving content in and from memory). As aging affects multisensory integration and cognitive control, these higher-order processes are likely to put accumulating constraints on listening as we grow older. However, little is known about the interplay of listening and postural control, and its potential importance for the treatment of age-related hearing impairment (presbycusis) calls for scientific attention. In this project we investigate the interplay between postural control and auditory (temporal) processing under ecologically relevant listening conditions in persons with different degrees of presbycusis using electrophysiological and behavioral outcome measures. To this end we start with a population-based approach mapping out the prevalence of presbycusis in middle- and late adulthood in Flanders. We investigate how age-related changes constrain the posture-listening interplay at the behavioral and the neural level and we put outstanding questions of multi-tasking to an empirical test. We then corroborate the results from our experiments by extending our scope to the plasticity of the listening brain: we ask how individuals can adapt to age-related changes through adaptive auditory-cognitive training aiming to improve communication and quality of life. Our interdisciplinary approach will provide fundamental insights into the underlying neurocognitive processes and their (mal) adaptation during adult aging and presbycusis. These insights and their application in our training design can inform rehabilitation or intervention approaches aiming to improve communication and listening skills in the elderly.

Keywords:aging, multitasking, auditory processing, posture, training

Disciplines:Audiology