Electrophysiological stimulus encoding declines with age only for modulated stimuli, not harmonic tones

Evidence

The top row of Fig. 6 shows that increasing age was associated with decreasing stimulus encoding accuracy, but only for the modulated tone stimulus (r = ‑0.53, p < 0.001). The middle row of Fig. 6 also shows a striking relationship between increased TFS sensitivity and reduced stimulus encoding for the complex harmonic tone (r = ‑0.56, p = 0.004). Interestingly, there was no such relationship for the modulated tone. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4187

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would encoding accuracy for the complex harmonic tone not decline with age, and why does better TFS sensitivity paradoxically correlate with reduced encoding for that tone? The dissociation invites mechanistic interpretation.