Benefit of contextual cues for the perception of temporally degraded speech

The effect of contextual cues on the understanding of distorted speech was studied. Two groups of subjects, aged 20-25 and 50-59 years participated. Three lists of 50 sentences that were continuous or interrupted at rates of 8/s and 2/s were presented to each ear. In half the sentences within list, the final word was highly predicable from the context, and in half, poorly predicted. Final word recognition scores decreased with interruption, more so for the 2/s rate. Context was compensatory. Middle-aged subjects did not perform more poorly. Factors possibly accounting for this outcome are discussed.

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