Influence of aging on human sound localization

Dobreva, Marina S.; O’Neill, William E.; Paige, Gary D.

doi:10.1152/jn.00951.2010

Cited by 119 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Our data therefore suggest that the use of binaural sound-localization mechanisms in our group of older adults has not deteriorated. These results contrast with Dobreva et al (2011), who reported reduced localization performance in the horizontal plane with advancing age. Furthermore, this is the first study to demonstrate accurate sound-localization performance under openloop conditions in a completely dark environment by children from 7 to 11 years of age.…”

Section: Azimuth Localizationcontrasting

confidence: 97%

“…In contrast, sound-localization performance in azimuth was unaffected (Figs. 6 and 7A, C, E, G), which contradicts earlier results by Dobreva et al (2011). Possibly, this difference in results might originate from methodological differences in target pointing (a natural head-orienting response vs. instructed, more indirect, joystick pointing).…”

Section: Older Listenersmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Several studies have reported a decline in localization performance with advancing age, not only for vertical (Noble et al 1994;Rakerd et al 1998;Abel et al 2000;Dobreva et al 2012) but also for horizontal (Abel and Hay 1996;Dobreva et al 2011) locations. The latter study suggested that this is caused by a central age-related deficit, resulting in an inability to use the ITDs.…”

Section: Older Listenersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age-related Hearing Loss and Ear Morphology Affect Vertical but not Horizontal Sound-Localization Performance

Otte

Agterberg

Wanrooij

et al. 2013

JARO

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Several studies have attributed deterioration of sound localization in the horizontal (azimuth) and vertical (elevation) planes to an age-related decline in binaural processing and high-frequency hearing loss (HFHL). The latter might underlie decreased elevation performance of older adults. However, as the pinnae keep growing throughout life, we hypothesized that larger ears might enable older adults to localize sounds in elevation on the basis of lower frequencies, thus (partially) compensating their HFHL. In addition, it is not clear whether sound localization has already matured at a very young age, when the body is still growing, and the binaural and monaural sound-localization cues change accordingly. The present study investigated sound-localization performance of children (7-11 years), young adults (20-34 years), and older adults (63-80 years) under open-loop conditions in the two-dimensional frontal hemifield. We studied the effect of age-related hearing loss and ear size on localization responses to brief broadband sound bursts with different bandwidths. We found similar localization abilities in azimuth for all listeners, including the older adults with HFHL. Sound localization in elevation for the children and young adult listeners with smaller ears improved when stimuli contained frequencies above 7 kHz. Subjects with larger ears could also judge the elevation of sound sources restricted to lower frequency content. Despite increasing ear size, sound localization in elevation deteriorated in older adults with HFHL. We conclude that the binaural localization cues are successfully used well into later stages of life, but that pinna growth cannot compensate the more profound HFHL with age.

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Section: Azimuth Localizationcontrasting

confidence: 97%

Section: Older Listenersmentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Older Listenersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age-related Hearing Loss and Ear Morphology Affect Vertical but not Horizontal Sound-Localization Performance

Otte

Agterberg

Wanrooij

et al. 2013

JARO

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“…It has also been reported that free-field localization in the horizontal plane is not strongly affected by hearing loss unless it is highly asymmetric or very severe at low frequencies (e.g., Noble et al, 1994;Otte et al, 2013). However, several studies have shown that older listeners (with typical high-frequency hearing losses) do localize more poorly than young NH listeners (Dobreva et al, 2011;Neher et al, 2011). Studies that have tried to relate SRM in multitalker environments to localization ability (Noble et al, 1997;Hawley et al, 1999) have had little success.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of a glimpsing model to understand the performance of listeners with and without hearing loss in spatialized speech mixtures

Best

Mason

Swaminathan

et al. 2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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In many situations, listeners with sensorineural hearing loss demonstrate reduced spatial release from masking compared to listeners with normal hearing. This deficit is particularly evident in the "symmetric masker" paradigm in which competing talkers are located to either side of a central target talker. However, there is some evidence that reduced target audibility (rather than a spatial deficit per se) under conditions of spatial separation may contribute to the observed deficit. In this study a simple "glimpsing" model (applied separately to each ear) was used to isolate the target information that is potentially available in binaural speech mixtures. Intelligibility of these glimpsed stimuli was then measured directly. Differences between normally hearing and hearingimpaired listeners observed in the natural binaural condition persisted for the glimpsed condition, despite the fact that the task no longer required segregation or spatial processing. This result is consistent with the idea that the performance of listeners with hearing loss in the spatialized mixture was limited by their ability to identify the target speech based on sparse glimpses, possibly as a result of some of those glimpses being inaudible.

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“…Specifically, the acoustic shadow of the head results in a lower intensity at the ear farthest away from the source (IID) and a time delay between the nearest ear and the ear farthest away from the source (ITD). IID is the dominant localization cue for middle-to-high frequencies, whereas ITD is the dominant localization cue for low frequencies (Dobreva, O'Neill, & Paige, 2011;Letowski & Letowski, 2012;Middlebrooks & Green, 1991). The complementary effects of these cues when used in combination can facilitate judgments of auditory spatial localization on the horizontal plane (Stevens & Newman, 1936).…”

Section: Effects Of Acoustic Intensity On Sound Source Localizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A “looming bias” in spatial hearing? Effects of acoustic intensity and spectrum on categorical sound source localization

McCarthy

Olsen

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Continuous increases of acoustic intensity (upramps) can indicate a looming (approaching) sound source in the environment, whereas continuous decreases of intensity (down-ramps) can indicate a receding sound source. From psychoacoustic experiments, an "adaptive perceptual bias" for up-ramp looming tonal stimuli has been proposed (Neuhoff, 1998). This theory postulates that (1) up-ramps are perceptually salient because of their association with looming and potentially threatening stimuli in the environment; (2) tonal stimuli are perceptually salient because of an association with single and potentially threatening biological sound sources in the environment, relative to white noise, which is more likely to arise from dispersed signals and nonthreatening/nonbiological sources (wind/ocean). In the present study, we extrapolated the "adaptive perceptual bias" theory and investigated its assumptions by measuring sound source localization in response to acoustic stimuli presented in azimuth to imply looming, stationary, and receding motion in depth. Participants (N = 26) heard three directions of intensity change (up-ramps, down-ramps, and steady state, associated with looming, receding, and stationary motion, respectively) and three levels of acoustic spectrum (a 1-kHz pure tone, the tonal vowel /ә/, and white noise) in a within-subjects design.We first hypothesized that if up-ramps are "perceptually salient" and capable of eliciting adaptive responses, then they would be localized faster and more accurately than downramps. This hypothesis was supported. However, the results did not support the second hypothesis. Rather, the white-noise and vowel conditions were localized faster and more accurately than the pure-tone conditions. These results are discussed in the context of auditory and visual theories of motion perception, auditory attentional capture, and the spectral causes of spatial ambiguity.

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Influence of aging on human sound localization

Abstract: Dobreva MS, O'Neill WE, Paige GD. Influence of aging on human sound localization.

Cited by 119 publications

References 92 publications

Age-related Hearing Loss and Ear Morphology Affect Vertical but not Horizontal Sound-Localization Performance

Age-related Hearing Loss and Ear Morphology Affect Vertical but not Horizontal Sound-Localization Performance

Use of a glimpsing model to understand the performance of listeners with and without hearing loss in spatialized speech mixtures

A “looming bias” in spatial hearing? Effects of acoustic intensity and spectrum on categorical sound source localization

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