The Effects of Time Compression and Time Expansion on Passage Comprehension by Elderly Listeners

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Abstract
The purpose of the investigation was to examine the comprehension performance of elderly listeners in response to rate-altered passages. A group of 56 persons was divided equally into two groups: young-old (65–74) and old-old (75–84). Experimental stimuli included four sets of test passages and questions that had been equalized for difficulty using three trial groups of subjects. Passages were presented at 60% time compression, 0% alteration (normal rate), and at 140% and 180% time expansion. Results indicated that young-old and old-old listeners did not differ significantly in mean passage comprehension scores at the normal rate and that both groups had significantly poorer comprehension at 60% time compression than at each of the other three presentation rates. Young-old subjects had better comprehension at 140% expansion and significantly better comprehension at 180% expansion compared with their performance at 0%. However, old-old subjects experienced nonsignificantly improved comprehension at 140% time expansion and were affected detrimentally by further expansion to 180%. Results are compared with those of prior investigations of sentence comprehension and are discussed with an emphasis on the heterogeneity of elderly listeners.

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