In addition to declines in peripheral hearing acuity and central auditory deficits, older adulthood is often accompanied by reduced working memory capacity, reduced efficiency in executive function, and a general slowing in a range of perceptual and cognitive operations. In spite of these changes, comprehension of meaningful speech in adult aging typically reflects relative stability, or at most a “graceful decline”, rather than catastrophic failure. The question is thus not only why performance in some aspects of spoken language comprehension decline in older adults, but why, in the absence of significant neuropathology, performance remains as stable as it does. In phrasing the question in this way we address one of the most fundamental questions in current neurobiology: how stable behavior can be produced in spite of changes in underlying neural structures and circuit parameters. This presentation will review current research on the cognitive changes that occur in adult aging, how linguistic context and expectations interact with degraded hearing, and what we can learn from studies of functional brain imagining.
