Age-related presbycusis limits high-frequency hearing by the mid-twenties

Evidence

Füllgrabe et al. ( 2015 ) eliminated confounding effects of hearing loss by testing young (18–27 years) and older (60–79 years) subjects with matched audiograms. Both groups had audiometric thresholds ≤ 20 dB HL from 0.125 to 6 kHz. The TFS1 test was conducted using centre frequencies of 1 and 2 kHz. The older subjects performed significantly more poorly than the young subjects for both centre frequencies. Performance on the TFS1 task was not correlated with audiometric thresholds at the test frequencies. These results confirm that increased age is associated with a poorer ability to use monaural TFS cues, in the absence of any abnormality in the audiogram. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 793 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Presbyacusis shows frequency-dependent recruitment strongest at high frequencies; Age-linked decline in cochlear function stems from falling endocochlear potential — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 959; Hearing loss that harms multichannel dialogue clarity can begin as early as age 30. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1440 (+5 more)

Related

• Hearing sensitivity degrades with age and is lower in early childhood (similarity 0.87)
• Age-linked decline in cochlear function stems from falling endocochlear potential (similarity 0.86)
• Age-related hearing loss affects high frequencies most and strikes men more than women (similarity 0.86)
• Age and hearing loss damage TFS but spare envelope cue processing (similarity 0.86)
• Frequency selectivity, not temporal processing, drives age-related declines in Huggins-pitch thresholds. (similarity 0.86)
• Hearing loss correlates strongly with age across a 71-person sample. (similarity 0.85)
• Temporal-structure sensitivity declines with age even when audiograms remain normal. (similarity 0.85)
• Aging significantly reduces cochlear gain estimates at multiple signal levels (similarity 0.85)
• Monaural temporal fine structure processing declines with age even without hearing loss. (similarity 0.84)
• Age-related hearing decline in noise begins while thresholds remain normal (similarity 0.84)
• Hearing sensitivity within clinically normal range still declines measurably with age (similarity 0.84)
• Age-related endocochlear loss hits basal thresholds harder than apical ones (similarity 0.84)
• Age-related hearing decline begins even with clinically normal pure-tone audiograms (similarity 0.84)
• Age-related hearing loss directly causes increased preferred treble (similarity 0.83)
• Age-related TFS decline correlates strongly with subtle absolute threshold variation even within normal hearing. (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Temporal-structure sensitivity declines with age even when audiograms remain normal. #expands (0.82) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 793