ArticleEar and hearing
Musical Experience Offsets Age-Related Decline in Understanding Speech-in-Noise: Type of Training Does Not Matter, Working Memory Is the Key.
Article in Ear and hearing. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Behavioral and Subjective Music Perception and Appreciation in Adults with Hearing Aids, Cochlear Implants, and Typical Hearing.Audiology research · 2026Article
- Enhanced Contour-Deviant Mismatch Negativity and Mnemonic Representations in Older Musicians.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Speech processing in noise and the ability to differentiate sounds by musicians and nonmusicians.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Article
- Long-term musical training can protect against age-related upregulation of neural activity in speech-in-noise perception.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Relationship between early musical training and detection of binaural gap based on interaural correlation change.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Auditory working memory mechanisms mediating the relationship between musicianship and auditory stream segregation.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Compensation or Preservation? Different Roles of Functional Lateralization in Speech Perception of Older Non-musicians and Musicians.Neuroscience bulletin · 2024Article
- Article
- Recognition of Emotional Prosody in Mandarin-Speaking Children: Effects of Age, Noise, and Working Memory.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2024Article
- Age and familiarity effects on musical memory.PloS one · 2024Article
- Differential advantages of musical backgrounds on binaural integration and interaction skills in instrumentalists, vocalists, and non-musicians.Journal of otology · 2023Article
- A longitudinal resource for population neuroscience of school-age children and adolescents in China.Scientific data · 2023Article
- Successful aging of musicians: Preservation of sensorimotor regions aids audiovisual speech-in-noise perception.Science advances · 2023Article
- Are musical activities associated with enhanced speech perception in noise in adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Current research in neurobiology · 2023Review
- The impairment of speech perception in noise following pure tone hearing recovery in patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Subjective tinnitus patients with normal pure-tone hearing still suffer more informational masking in the noisy environment.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Working-Memory, Alpha-Theta Oscillations and Musical Training in Older Age: Research Perspectives for Speech-on-speech Perception.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Review
- The Microstructural Plasticity of the Arcuate Fasciculus Undergirds Improved Speech in Noise Perception in Musicians.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Article
- Neurophysiological improvements in speech-in-noise task after short-term choir training in older adults.Aging · 2021Article
- Processing of Degraded Speech in Brain Disorders.Brain sciences · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesSpeech comprehension under "cocktail party" scenarios deteriorates with age even in the absence of measurable hearing loss. Musical training is suggested to counteract the age-related decline in speech-in-noise (SIN) perception, yet which aspect of musical plasticity contributes to this compensation remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effects of musical experience and aging on SIN perception ability. We hypothesized a key mediation role of auditory working memory in ameliorating deficient SIN perception in older adults by musical training.
designForty-eight older musicians, 29 older nonmusicians, 48 young musicians, and 24 young nonmusicians all with (near) normal peripheral hearing were recruited. The SIN task was recognizing nonsense speech sentences either perceptually colocated or separated with a noise masker (energetic masking) or a two-talker speech masker (informational masking). Auditory working memory was measured by auditory digit span. Path analysis was used to examine the direct and indirect effects of musical expertise and age on SIN perception performance.
resultsOlder musicians outperformed older nonmusicians in auditory working memory and all SIN conditions (noise separation, noise colocation, speech separation, speech colocation), but such musician advantages were absent in young adults. Path analysis showed that age and musical training had opposite effects on auditory working memory, which played a significant mediation role in SIN perception. In addition, the type of musical training did not differentiate SIN perception regardless of age.
conclusionsThese results provide evidence that musical training offsets age-related speech perception deficit at adverse listening conditions by preserving auditory working memory. Our findings highlight auditory working memory in supporting speech perception amid competing noise in older adults, and underline musical training as a means of "cognitive reserve" against declines in speech comprehension and cognition in aging populations.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.