Suppression estimates decrease significantly with age in both low and high-side configurations

Evidence

With the short combined masker, all participants showed some low-side suppression, and all participants except for one older adult showed high-side suppression. With the long combined masker, 2/5 older adults had no measurable low-side suppression, and 3/5 older adults had no measurable high-side suppression. … It is possible that the decreased suppression in the older adults was due to their increased auditory thresholds. To determine the effect of auditory threshold on suppression estimates, correlation coefficients were computed between threshold in dB HL and suppression estimates from each of the eight conditions tested. Out of the eight suppression conditions, threshold at 2 kHz was negatively correlated with low-side suppression at the 50-dB SPL signal level measured with the short combined masker [r (10) = − 0.68, p = 0.031] and with the long combined masker [r (10) = − 0.67, p = 0.33]. This suggests that those with higher auditory thresholds had smaller low-side suppression estimates at the 50-dB SPL signal level. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 949