Schedule of Events | Symposia

Age-related differences in aperiodic neural activity and its role in listening effort

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Sarah J. Woods¹ (sarah.woods@psych.utah.edu), Jack W Silcox¹, Brennan R. Payne¹; ¹University of Utah

Though previously ignored, aperiodic activity is emerging as an important element of the electroencephalography (EEG) signal. In addition to considering how changes in aperiodic activity may bias oscillatory measurements, both the aperiodic offset and slope have been shown to be dynamic neural measurements that are linked to underlying neurophysiological states (e.g., E/I balance), sensitive to cognitive task demands, and predictive of individual differences in cognitive capacity. In two studies, we show that aperiodic activity can be used as to index listening effort, or the allocation of cognitive resources to accomplish a listening task, during speech comprehension. Both younger (Exp1; N = 31) and older adults (Exp2; N = 48) listened to sentences in quiet or in speech-shaped background noise while EEG was recorded. Changes in aperiodic neural activity were sensitive to the addition of background noise during a listening task in both younger and older adults. Furthermore, noise induced changes in aperiodic activity were greater for older adults and for those with poorer hearing acuity. For younger adults, parietal alpha activity was additionally sensitive to background noise, but this was not true for older adults. These findings highlight the importance of considering aperiodic EEG activity in assessing listening effort in speech comprehension specifically and in challenging cognitive tasks more generally.

Topic Area: METHODS: Electrophysiology