The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine whether temporal coding in the auditory system was the same for younger and older listeners. Temporal coding was assessed by amplitude-modulated auditory steady-state responses (AM ASSRs) as a physiologic measure of phase-locking capability. The secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether AM ASSRs were related to behavioral speech understanding ability. AM ASSRs showed that the ability of the auditory system to phase lock to a temporally altered signal is dependent on modulation rate, carrier frequency, and age of the listener. Specifically, the interaction of frequency and age showed that younger listeners had more phase locking than old listeners at 500 Hz. The number of phase-locked responses for the 500 Hz carrier frequency was significantly correlated to word-recognition performance. In conclusion, the effect of aging on temporal processing, as measured by phase locking with AM ASSRs, was found for low-frequency stimuli where phase locking in the auditory system should be optimal. The exploration, and use, of electrophysiologic responses to measure auditory timing analysis in humans has the potential to facilitate the understanding of speech perception difficulties in older listeners.
The conclusions from the present study are twofold: (1) HFSNHL may have an off-channel impact on auditory temporal processing, and (2) presenescent changes in the auditory system of MANH subjects increased self-perceived problems hearing in background noise and decreased functional performance in background noise compared with YNH subjects.
The behavioral and electrophysiological measures used in the present study clearly showed evidence of reduced binaural processing in ∼10 of the subjects in the present study who had symmetrical pure-tone sensitivity. These results underscore the importance of understanding binaural auditory processing and how these measures may or may not identify functional auditory problems.
The presence of babble significantly reduced the ASSR detection rate and ASSR amplitude for NH subjects, but had minimal effect on ASSRs for HI subjects. In addition, babble enhanced ASSR amplitude at high stimulus levels. ASSR detection rate and ASSR amplitude recorded in quiet and babble were significantly correlated with word recognition performance for NH and HI subjects.
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