Spatial selective auditory attention is preserved in older age but is degraded by peripheral hearing loss

Abstract

Interest in how ageing affects attention is long-standing, although interactions between sensory and attentional processing in older age are not fully understood. Here, we examined interactions between peripheral hearing and selective attention in a spatialised cocktail party listening paradigm, in which three talkers spoke different sentences simultaneously and participants were asked to report the sentence spoken by a talker at a particular location. By comparing a sample of older (N = 61; age = 55–80 years) and younger (N = 58; age = 18–35 years) adults, we show that, as a group, older adults benefit as much as younger adults from preparatory spatial attention. Although, for older adults, this benefit significantly reduces with greater age-related hearing loss. These results demonstrate that older adults with excellent hearing retain the ability to direct spatial selective attention, but this ability deteriorates, in a graded manner, with age-related hearing loss. Thus, reductions in spatial selective attention likely contribute to difficulties communicating in social settings for older adults with age-related hearing loss. Overall, these findings demonstrate a relationship between mild perceptual decline and attention in older age.