Disfluencies in spontaneous speech in easy and adverse communicative situations: The effect of age

Disfluencies are a pervasive feature of speech communication. Their function in communication is still widely discussed with some proposing that their usage might aid understanding. Accordingly, talkers may produce more disfluencies when conversing in adverse communicative situations, e.g. in background noise. Moreover, increasing age may have an effect on disfluency use as older adults report particular difficulties when communicating in adverse conditions. In this study, we elicited spontaneous speech via a problem-solving task from four different age groups (19–76 years old) to investigate the effect of energetic and informational maskers on the use of filled pauses (FPs), and its interaction with age. Measures of disfluency rates, effort ratings, and communication efficiency were obtained. Results show that, against our predictions, FP usage may decrease in adverse conditions. Moreover, age does not play a great role in adults with normal hearing. The results indicate that individuals differ greatly in their disfluency adaptations, utilising different strategies to overcome challenging communicative situations