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Binaural temporal fine structure sensitivity declines by middle age independently of hearing thresholds

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tagsja-picks, xref, factual_claims, trade, corroborated, category/factual-claims
aliases@van_dijk_physiology_2016, loc. 1078

4 min read

Binaural temporal fine structure sensitivity declines by middle age independently of hearing thresholds

Evidence

Thresholds for the LEVEL task also tended to be higher in the elderly than the young, consistently with previous finding (e.g., He et al. 1998 ). Despite these consistent declines in the performance of the monaural tasks with age, the present study failed to find significant age effect in the lateralization tasks (ITD and ILD ). The thresholds for the ILD and LEVEL tasks correlated for both the lowand high-frequency stimuli. This confirms the results of our earlier study (Ochi et al. 2014 ), suggesting that the efficiency of level coding in the auditory periphery is a major factor accounting for inter-individual variation of ILD sensitivity. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1078

The binaural processing of TFS can be assessed by measuring the smallest detectable interaural phase difference (IPD) of a sinusoidal carrier relative to an IPD of 0°, keeping the envelope synchronous at the two ears. A task of this type is the TFS-LF test (where LF stands for low-frequency) (Hopkins and Moore 2010b ; Sek and Moore 2012 ). Moore et al. ( 2012 ) tested 35 subjects with audiometric thresholds ≤ 20 dB HL from 0.25 to 6 kHz and ages from 22 to 61 years. The TFS-LF test was used at center frequencies of 500 and 850 Hz. There were significant correlations between age and IPD thresholds at both 500 Hz (r = 0.37) and 850 Hz (r = 0.65). Scores on the TFS-LF task were not significantly correlated with absolute thresholds at the test frequency. These results confirm those of Ross et al. ( 2007 ) and Grose and Mamo ( 2010 ), and indicate that the decline in sensitivity to binaural TFS with increasing age is already apparent by middle age. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 796

Hearing sensitivity generally declined slightly with age. The correlation between age and the pure-tone average hearing loss (at 500 Hz, 1 kHz, 2 kHz and 4 kHz) for the best ear was significant, r = 0.43, p = 0.001. 3.2 Correlations: QuickSIN, TFS Sensitivity, Age and Speech in Noise Figure 3 shows the relationships between age, speech in noise perception, and TFS sensitivity. Both speech in noise scores (r = ‑0.38, p < 0.03) and TFS sensitivity (r = ‑0.57, p < 0.001) were significantly negatively correlated with age. Older participants generally had worse speech scores, and worse TFS sensitivity, with a stronger relationship in the case of TFS sensitivity. Speech in noise performance was moderately and significantly related to TFS sensitivity (r = ‑0.34, p = 0.046). Participants who had good TFS sensitivity generally had good speech in noise scores (good scores are negative). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4187

Categorization

  • XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s stated focus on psychoacoustics of temporal fine structure processing; the age-decline-with-normal-audiogram dissociation is a recurring causal claim in this literature. — connects to: Hearing impairment commonly begins between ages 30 and 44 — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1913; Monaural temporal fine structure processing declines with age even without hearing loss. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 824; Temporal-structure sensitivity declines with age even when audiograms remain normal. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 793 (+3 more)
  • corroborated: 6 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1078; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 796; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4187

Broader Connections

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