Reliability and generalizability of neural speech tracking in younger and older adults

Abstract

Neural tracking of spoken speech is considered a potential clinical biomarker for speech-processing difficulties, but the reliability of neural speech tracking is unclear. Here, younger and older adults listened to stories in two sessions while electroencephalography was recorded to investigate the reliability and generalizability of neural speech tracking. Speech tracking amplitude was larger for older than younger adults, consistent with an age-related loss of inhibition. The reliability of neural speech tracking was moderate (ICC ∼0.5–0.75) and tended to be higher for older adults. However, reliability was lower for speech tracking than for neural responses to noise bursts (ICC >0.8), which we used as a benchmark for maximum reliability. Neural speech tracking generalized moderately across different stories (ICC ∼0.5–0.6), which appeared greatest for audiobook-like stories spoken by the same person. Hence, a variety of stories could possibly be used for clinical assessments. Overall, the current data are important for developing a biomarker of speech processing but suggest that further work is needed to increase the reliability to meet clinical standards.