ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (1): 22-29.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2015.00022

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Musical Experience Alleviates the Aging in the Speech Perception in Noise

WANG Mengyuan; NING Ruijing; ZHANG Xueyan   

  1. (School of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China)
  • Received:2014-05-06 Online:2015-01-15 Published:2015-01-15
  • Contact: WANG Mengyuan, E-mail: wangmengyuan@bnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

Old adults with normal hearing often suffer from the loss in the ability of speech perception in noisy environment. Alleviation of this type of auditory aging has remarkably psychological and social benefits. Musical training significantly improves the speech perception of old adults in noisy environment. In addition, the timing and precision of auditory brainstem processing of speech signal in old adults are also enhanced if they have musical experience. This enhancement of neural processing appears to play an important role in the speech-perception improvement induced by the musical training.

Key words: musical experience, speech perception, aging