Reduced listener-speaker neural coupling underlies speech understanding difficulty in older adults

An increasing body of studies have highlighted the importance of listener-speaker neural coupling in successful speech communication. How this mechanism may change with normal aging and the association of this change with age-related decline in speech understanding remain unexplored. In this study, we scanned with fMRI a young and an older speaker telling real-life stories, and then played the audio recordings to groups of young (N = 28, aged 19-27y) and older adults (N = 27, aged 58-75y) during scanning, respectively. The older listeners understood the story worse than the young, and the advancing age of the older listeners was associated with poorer speech understanding. Compared to the young listener-speaker dyads, the older dyads exhibited weaker neural couplings in both linguistic and extra-linguistic areas. Moreover, within the older group, the listener’s age was negatively correlated with the overall strength of interbrain coupling, which in turn was associated with poorer speech understanding. These results reveal the deficits of older adults in achieving neural alignment with other brains, which may underlie the age-related decline in speech understanding.

Humour and the locus of control in The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler)

The purpose of this article is firstly to distinguish between the notions “external locus of control” and “internal locus of control”, secondly to indicate ways in which the locus of control in humour in “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler can be identified and thirdly to indicate possible ways in which emphasis on the internal locus of control in the young reader can assist him/her in the development of a general mental/- psychological well-being. Different kinds of literary humour contribute to the ways in which young listeners/readers can identify with stories, poems, dramas and films. The young listener/reader can recognise him/herself in humorous situations, in the humorous use of imagery, wordplay and illustrations/visuals. He/she can also identify with or distance him-/herself from or reject the characters, the values represented and the author who created the text. When in interaction with the works of authors who use negative as well as positive kinds of humour to point out the dos and don’ts, the rights and the wrongs in life, the horizon of a young listener’s/reader’s experience can be expanded. Such a reading would contribute to the development of the young reader’s cognitive, emotional, social and moral values as it links up with an unconscious or conscious decision about the locus of control in his/her life.