Aging impairs speech-in-noise ability beyond what hearing thresholds predict
Evidence
We live in a noisy world, and understanding speech in noise is a common challenge. As people age, this task becomes increasingly difficult, and elevated thresholds alone cannot account for this increased difficulty (e.g., Pichora-Fuller et al. 1995 ). One explanation for this discrepancy may be attributed to the decrease in the endocochlear potential that tends to occur with increasing age (e.g., Schuknecht et al. 1974 ). A decreased endocochlear potential negatively affects the function of inner and outer hair cells (OHCs) (e.g., Gates et al. 2002 ), and disruptions in OHC function could decrease cochlear nonlinearity (e.g., Schmiedt et al. 1980 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 923
The QuickSIN scores were entered as the response variable. Age, four-frequency pure-tone hearing thresholds (in the better ear), TFS sensitivity, and stimulus encoding accuracy for both the complex harmonic and modulated tones were entered as predictors. The regression indicated that QuickSIN scores were best predicted by a combination of all variables except the hearing thresholds (R 2 = 64.4, F (4,26) = 6.32, p = 0.004). … When the pure-tone average hearing thresholds were added to the model, they contributed only 2 % variance. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4157
Categorization
- XREF: Endocochlear potential decline with age links to the cochlear amplifier / OHC gain mechanisms discussed elsewhere in hearing physiology.
- QUESTION: Is decreased endocochlear potential now the leading accepted mechanism for age-related cochlear nonlinearity loss, or still one of several competing explanations?
- SEED: Angle: the audiogram as an outdated gold standard in audiology — an essay arguing threshold testing systematically under-predicts real-world listening difficulty.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 923; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4157