The effect of cognitive load on the vowel onsets of older and younger adults

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of cognitive load on the vowel timing of older and younger adults. It was hypothesized that the participants would have longer and less extensive second formant (F2) transitions in the heavier cognitive load condition. It was also hypothesized that the older adults would have longer and less extensive F2 transitions than the younger adults. Eight adults, four younger and four older, equally matched for sex participated. They completed a sentence-level Stroop task in two conditions, congruent and incongruent, that varied on cognitive load. Eight sentences were produced in each condition. Plosive-vowel syllables were selected for measurement before the color words, at the color words, and after the color words. All participants exhibited longer and more extensive vowel transitions before and at the color word in comparison to afterwards. In the incongruent condition, the color words had longer F2 transition durations. The older adults had longer F2 transition durations than the younger adults. The F2 transition frequency extent was greatest at the color word. The older adults had wider F2 transitions at the color word that also were wider for the incongruent words.The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of cognitive load on the vowel timing of older and younger adults. It was hypothesized that the participants would have longer and less extensive second formant (F2) transitions in the heavier cognitive load condition. It was also hypothesized that the older adults would have longer and less extensive F2 transitions than the younger adults. Eight adults, four younger and four older, equally matched for sex participated. They completed a sentence-level Stroop task in two conditions, congruent and incongruent, that varied on cognitive load. Eight sentences were produced in each condition. Plosive-vowel syllables were selected for measurement before the color words, at the color words, and after the color words. All participants exhibited longer and more extensive vowel transitions before and at the color word in comparison to afterwards. In the incongruent condition, the color words had longer F2 transition durations. The older adults had longer F2 transi...