Hearing Levels Affect Higher Order Cognitive Performance

Twenty-one young (M=21.3) and 19 older (M=73.1) adults completed an aurally administered test of working memory capacity presented at 5 above threshold levels (65, 60, 55, 50, and 45 dB). The test required verification of sentences and recall of sentence final words at the end of each set. Audiometric assessment as well as sentence verification ensured that all auditory stimuli were above hearing levels in both age groups. Both young and older listeners demonstrated reduced working memory capacity scores as stimuli were presented at lower dB levels. The impact of decreases in dB level was greater for older relative to younger adults. But since older adults have elevated hearing thresholds within the range investigated here, the capacity differences observed between the two groups may be negligible. Implications of the results for theories of cognitive aging and for cognitive testing among older adults with subclinical hearing loss are discussed