Abstract
Congruent linguistic context can facilitate rapid spoken word recognition. The present study examined the effects of incongruent linguistic context on spoken word comprehension, and the flexibility of context-dependent comprehension strategies relative to age and hearing acuity. Young adults with normal hearing acuity, and older adults with good and poor hearing acuity, were asked to identify target words using the word-onset gating paradigm in congruent, incongruent, and neutral context conditions. Word recognition threshold were compared when the participant knew a priori if the sentence context would be relevant and when they did not. It was found that aging and hearing acuity significantly affected word recognition thresholds, and that constraining context minimized the amount of word onset necessary to identify target words. Additionally, all three participant groups had lower recognition thresholds when the relevance of context was known. The present study suggests a flexible, context-dependent listening strategy for spoken word recognition that holds for older as well as younger adults.