Age-related sensory decline offers a natural experiment for correlational analysis.

Evidence

A population including young and elderly listeners would therefore exhibit a large variability of thresholds in the monaural tasks, which would lead to improved sensitivity of the correlation analyses and provide further insights as to the roles of monaural processing in ITD or ILD discrimination. … It has been reported that sensitivities to the temporal structure and intensity of stimuli decline with age (e.g., Hopkins and Moore 2011 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1026

Categorization

• QUESTION: The methodological trick of widening inter-subject variance with age is worth remembering as an experimental strategy.
• XREF: connects to: Puberty alters a girl’s sensory relation to the world before she understands it