Bruce Schneider
Professor of Psychology
Director, CIHR Research Group On Sensory and Cognitive Aging
University of Toronto at Mississauga
When the acoustics are poor, a listener's ability to navigate an auditory scene, communicate within it, or learn while immersed in it, is adversely affected. Moreover, when poor acoustics are combined with virtually any kind of auditory problem (even those which would not normally merit clinical attention), all of these listening and comprehension difficulties are considerably exacerbated. For example, a number of studies have demonstrated that older adults with clinically normal hearing are considerably more disadvantaged than normal-hearing younger adults in adverse listening conditions. Indeed, hearing status in older adults is, arguably, the best predictor of their performance on a number of different cognitive tasks. In this presentation we will investigate the reasons for the tight linkage between hearing status, listening conditions, and cognitive performance. In doing so we will show that features of the acoustical environment can have a surprisingly large effect on the ability to comprehend spoken language, to memorize and recall information, and to segregate sound sources in an auditory scene. Finally, we will argue that the nature of these complex interrelationships among acoustical factors, hearing status, and cognitive performance will force us to re-evaluate our notions of how information is processed to include a greater role for top-down, attentional control over auditory processing.