Abstract
The comprehension of spoken language has been characterized by a number of “local” theories that have focused on specific aspects of the task: models of word recognition, models of selective attention, accounts of thematic role assignment at the sentence level, and so forth. The ease of language understanding (ELU) model (Rönnberg et al., 2013) stands as one of the few attempts to offer a fully encompassing framework for language understanding. In this paper we discuss interactions between perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive factors in spoken language understanding. Central to our presentation is an examination of aspects of the ELU model that apply especially to spoken language comprehension in adult aging, where speed of processing, working memory capacity, and hearing acuity are often compromised. We discuss, in relation to the ELU model, conceptions of working memory and its capacity limitations, the use of linguistic context to aid in speech recognition and the importance of inhibitory control, and language comprehension at the sentence level. Throughout this paper we offer a constructive look at the ELU model; where it is strong and where there are gaps to be filled.
Highlights
Raymond Carhart has been credited with coining the term “audiology”, and offering the first formal course with that name at Northwestern University in 1946
Just as audiology has begun to recognize that cognitive factors may play a role in performance, so cognitive psychologists engaged in research on language comprehension in older adults are beginning to recognize that the full picture of language comprehension cannot be understood without attending to the auditory declines that are common in normal aging
As we have noted above, working memory plays a central role in the ease of language understanding (ELU) model, where it is seen as carrying a number of cognitive functions relevant to language understanding
Summary
Raymond Carhart has been credited with coining the term “audiology” (an interesting mix of Latin and Greek roots), and offering the first formal course with that name at Northwestern University in 1946. The 2003 paper presents a basic framework along with a formulation to capture four parameters of spoken language understanding: (1) accuracy and features of syllable representations; (2) the speed of access to long-term memory (LTM); (3) the level of mismatch between the stimulus input and the corresponding phonology represented in the mental lexicon; and (4) the processing efficacy and storage capacity of working memory. This initial model assumed an interaction between the quality of the sensory input, information available in LTM, and the utilization of working memory.
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