Why Do Older Adults Prefer Some Radio Stations? Helping to Increase Speech Understanding

—This paper addresses the problem of older adults’ understanding of speech. By analyzing speech rates used by various radio stations and by confronting them with audience ratings we found that there is some correlation between speech rate used by radio stations and audience preferences in different age groups. We present various studies analyzing the problem of speech perception among older adults; we also show speech processing algorithms, which are able to modify speech rates. In the experimental section of the study, we run preliminary intelligibility tests using original, fast speech, and slowed-down speech using a time-domain prosody modification algorithm. The results suggest that older adults can benefit from a sloweddown rate of speech.