Are auditory processing and cognitive performance assessments overlapping or distinct? Parsing the auditory behaviour of older adults

Abstract

Objective Auditory processing predicts cognitive decline, including dementia, in older adults. Auditory processing involves the understanding, interpretation, and communication of auditory information. Cognition is linked to auditory processing; however, it is disputed whether auditory processing is a separate construct distinct from cognition. The purpose of this study was to determine if auditory processing is distinct from cognition in older adults. Design Participants completed 14 cognitive and auditory processing assessments. Assessments were subjected to exploratory factor analysis with principal components extraction and varimax rotation with Kaiser normalisation. Study sample: 213 community-dwelling older adults (M = 71.39 years, 57% female, 93% Caucasian, M = 16 years education) with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) participated. Results Four factors were identified, explaining 66.3% of the total variance: (1) executive functions, visual processing speed, and dichotic auditory processing, (2) auditory processing of degraded speech, (3) memory, and (4) auditory temporal processing of nonspeech. Conclusions Two domains of auditory processing (processing degraded speech and temporal processing) account for unique variance to which cognitive measures are not sensitive, while measures of auditory dichotic processing appear to be tapping similar abilities as measures of cognition. Older adults who perform poorly on dichotic measures should be screened for cognitive impairment.