Listening to speech in adverse conditions can be challenging and effortful, especially for older adults. This study examined age-related differences in effortful listening by recording changes in the task-evoked pupil response (TEPR; a physiological marker of listening effort) both at the level of sentence processing and over the entire course of a listening task. A total of 65 (32 young adults, 33 older adults) participants performed a speech recognition task in the presence of a competing talker, while moment-to-moment changes in pupil size were continuously monitored. Participants were also administered the Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale, a questionnaire assessing daily life listening-related fatigue within four domains (social, cognitive, emotional, physical). Normalized TEPRs were overall larger and more steeply rising and falling around the peak in the older versus the young adult group during sentence processing. Additionally, mean TEPRs over the course of the listening task were more stable in the older versus the young adult group, consistent with a more sustained recruitment of compensatory attentional resources to maintain task performance. No age-related differences were found in terms of total daily life listening-related fatigue; however, older adults reported higher scores than young adults within the social domain. Overall, this study provides evidence for qualitatively distinct patterns of physiological arousal between young and older adults consistent with age-related upregulation in resource allocation during listening. A more detailed understanding of age-related changes in the subjective and physiological mechanisms that underlie effortful listening will ultimately help to address complex communication needs in aging listeners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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与年轻人相比，老年人表现出更持久的努力倾听模式。

在不利条件下聆听演讲可能具有挑战性且费力，尤其是对老年人而言。这项研究通过记录任务诱发的瞳孔反应（TEPR；听力努力的生理标记）在句子处理水平和整个听力任务过程中的变化，检查了与年龄相关的努力听力差异。共有 65 名（32 名年轻人，33 名老年人）参与者在竞争性说话者在场的情况下执行语音识别任务，同时持续监测瞳孔大小的瞬间变化。参与者还接受了范德比尔特疲劳量表，这是一种在四个领域（社交、认知、情感、身体）评估日常生活中与听力相关的疲劳的问卷。在句子处理过程中，老年人组与年轻人组的标准化 TEPR 总体上更大，并且在峰值附近上升和下降的幅度更大。此外，与年轻人相比，老年人组在听力任务过程中的平均 TEPR 更稳定，这与更持续地招募补偿性注意力资源以维持任务表现一致。在日常生活听力相关疲劳方面，没有发现与年龄相关的差异；然而，老年人在社交领域的得分高于年轻人。总体而言，这项研究为年轻人和老年人之间生理唤醒的定性不同模式提供了证据，这与听力期间资源分配的年龄相关上调一致。更详细地了解作为努力聆听基础的主观和生理机制中与年龄相关的变化，最终将有助于解决老年听众的复杂交流需求。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。