Abstract

In conversation, interlocutors use prosody to identify when a partner’s utterance is complete. Sensorineural hearing loss may limit access to relevant prosodic cues or alter their weighting. This exploratory study examined if older listeners with hearing loss differ from those with typical hearing in their use of temporal, intensity, and pitch-related information to judge utterance completion. Participants classified declarative questions as finished or continuing based solely on prosody. The acoustic properties of the utterances were quantified in terms of boundary strength (final word duration and intensity) and pitch movement (duration and excursion of final rise). Both listener groups classified utterances above chance. However, to identify finished utterances, listeners with typical hearing relied on duration and intensity while those with hearing loss relied on pitch movement. We suggest that hearing loss reshapes the prosodic dimensions listeners rely on for turn-end perception.