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Regev J, Relaño-Iborra H, Zaar J, Dau T. Disentangling the effects of hearing loss and age on amplitude modulation frequency selectivity. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2024; 155:2589-2602. [PMID: 38607268 DOI: 10.1121/10.0025541] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 04/13/2024]
Abstract
The processing and perception of amplitude modulation (AM) in the auditory system reflect a frequency-selective process, often described as a modulation filterbank. Previous studies on perceptual AM masking reported similar results for older listeners with hearing impairment (HI listeners) and young listeners with normal hearing (NH listeners), suggesting no effects of age or hearing loss on AM frequency selectivity. However, recent evidence has shown that age, independently of hearing loss, adversely affects AM frequency selectivity. Hence, this study aimed to disentangle the effects of hearing loss and age. A simultaneous AM masking paradigm was employed, using a sinusoidal carrier at 2.8 kHz, narrowband noise modulation maskers, and target modulation frequencies of 4, 16, 64, and 128 Hz. The results obtained from young (n = 3, 24-30 years of age) and older (n = 10, 63-77 years of age) HI listeners were compared to previously obtained data from young and older NH listeners. Notably, the HI listeners generally exhibited lower (unmasked) AM detection thresholds and greater AM frequency selectivity than their NH counterparts in both age groups. Overall, the results suggest that age negatively affects AM frequency selectivity for both NH and HI listeners, whereas hearing loss improves AM detection and AM selectivity, likely due to the loss of peripheral compression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan Regev
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
| | - Helia Relaño-Iborra
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
| | - Johannes Zaar
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
- Eriksholm Research Centre, Snekkersten, 3070, Denmark
| | - Torsten Dau
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
- Copenhagen Hearing and Balance Center, Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark
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2
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McClaskey CM. Neural hyperactivity and altered envelope encoding in the central auditory system: Changes with advanced age and hearing loss. Hear Res 2024; 442:108945. [PMID: 38154191 PMCID: PMC10942735 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2023.108945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023]
Abstract
Temporal modulations are ubiquitous features of sound signals that are important for auditory perception. The perception of temporal modulations, or temporal processing, is known to decline with aging and hearing loss and negatively impact auditory perception in general and speech recognition specifically. However, neurophysiological literature also provides evidence of exaggerated or enhanced encoding of specifically temporal envelopes in aging and hearing loss, which may arise from changes in inhibitory neurotransmission and neuronal hyperactivity. This review paper describes the physiological changes to the neural encoding of temporal envelopes that have been shown to occur with age and hearing loss and discusses the role of disinhibition and neural hyperactivity in contributing to these changes. Studies in both humans and animal models suggest that aging and hearing loss are associated with stronger neural representations of both periodic amplitude modulation envelopes and of naturalistic speech envelopes, but primarily for low-frequency modulations (<80 Hz). Although the frequency dependence of these results is generally taken as evidence of amplified envelope encoding at the cortex and impoverished encoding at the midbrain and brainstem, there is additional evidence to suggest that exaggerated envelope encoding may also occur subcortically, though only for envelopes with low modulation rates. A better understanding of how temporal envelope encoding is altered in aging and hearing loss, and the contexts in which neural responses are exaggerated/diminished, may aid in the development of interventions, assistive devices, and treatment strategies that work to ameliorate age- and hearing-loss-related auditory perceptual deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolyn M McClaskey
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, 135 Rutledge Ave, MSC 550, Charleston, SC 29425, United States.
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3
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Miller-Viacava N, Lazard D, Delmas T, Krause B, Apoux F, Lorenzi C. Sensorineural hearing loss alters auditory discrimination of natural soundscapes. Int J Audiol 2023:1-10. [PMID: 37909429 DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2023.2272559] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Accepted: 10/12/2023] [Indexed: 11/03/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The ability to discriminate natural soundscapes recorded in a temperate terrestrial biome was measured in 15 hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with bilateral, mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss and 15 normal-hearing (NH) controls. DESIGN Soundscape discrimination was measured using a three-interval oddity paradigm and the method of constant stimuli. On each trial, sequences of 2-second recordings varying the habitat, season and period of the day were presented diotically at a nominal SPL of 60 or 80 dB. RESULTS Discrimination scores were above chance level for both groups, but they were poorer for HI than NH listeners. On average, the scores of HI listeners were relatively well accounted for by those of NH listeners tested with stimuli spectrally-shaped to match the frequency-dependent reduction in audibility of individual HI listeners. However, the scores of HI listeners were not significantly correlated with pure-tone audiometric thresholds and age. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that the ability to discriminate natural soundscapes associated with changes in habitat, season and period of the day is disrupted but it is not abolished. The deficits of the HI listeners are partly accounted for by reduced audibility. Supra-threshold auditory deficits and individual listening strategies may also explain differences between NH and HI listeners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole Miller-Viacava
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, École normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL University), Paris, France
| | - Diane Lazard
- Institut de l'Audition, INSERM Unit, Paris, France
- Institut Arthur Vernes, ENT Department, Paris, France
| | - Tanguy Delmas
- Institut de l'Audition, INSERM Unit, Paris, France
- Audition Lefeuvre, ECLEAR, Athis-Mons, France
| | - Bernie Krause
- Wild Sanctuary, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, USA
| | - Frédéric Apoux
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, École normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL University), Paris, France
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, École normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL University), Paris, France
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4
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Regev J, Zaar J, Relaño-Iborra H, Dau T. Age-related reduction of amplitude modulation frequency selectivity. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2023; 153:2298. [PMID: 37092934 DOI: 10.1121/10.0017835] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2022] [Accepted: 03/27/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
The perception of amplitude modulations (AMs) has been characterized by a frequency-selective process in the temporal envelope domain and simulated in computational auditory processing and perception models using a modulation filterbank. Such AM frequency-selective processing has been argued to be critical for the perception of complex sounds, including speech. This study aimed at investigating the effects of age on behavioral AM frequency selectivity in young (n = 11, 22-29 years) versus older (n = 10, 57-77 years) listeners with normal hearing, using a simultaneous AM masking paradigm with a sinusoidal carrier (2.8 kHz), target modulation frequencies of 4, 16, 64, and 128 Hz, and narrowband-noise modulation maskers. A reduction of AM frequency selectivity by a factor of up to 2 was found in the older listeners. While the observed AM selectivity co-varied with the unmasked AM detection sensitivity, the age-related broadening of the masked threshold patterns remained stable even when AM sensitivity was similar across groups for an extended stimulus duration. The results from the present study might provide a valuable basis for further investigations exploring the effects of age and reduced AM frequency selectivity on complex sound perception as well as the interaction of age and hearing impairment on AM processing and perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan Regev
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
| | - Johannes Zaar
- Eriksholm Research Centre, Snekkersten, 3070, Denmark
| | - Helia Relaño-Iborra
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
| | - Torsten Dau
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 2800, Denmark
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5
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Gómez-Álvarez M, Johannesen PT, Coelho-de-Sousa SL, Klump GM, Lopez-Poveda EA. The Relative Contribution of Cochlear Synaptopathy and Reduced Inhibition to Age-Related Hearing Impairment for People With Normal Audiograms. Trends Hear 2023; 27:23312165231213191. [PMID: 37956654 PMCID: PMC10644751 DOI: 10.1177/23312165231213191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2023] [Revised: 10/18/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Older people often show auditory temporal processing deficits and speech-in-noise intelligibility difficulties even when their audiogram is clinically normal. The causes of such problems remain unclear. Some studies have suggested that for people with normal audiograms, age-related hearing impairments may be due to a cognitive decline, while others have suggested that they may be caused by cochlear synaptopathy. Here, we explore an alternative hypothesis, namely that age-related hearing deficits are associated with decreased inhibition. For human adults (N = 30) selected to cover a reasonably wide age range (25-59 years), with normal audiograms and normal cognitive function, we measured speech reception thresholds in noise (SRTNs) for disyllabic words, gap detection thresholds (GDTs), and frequency modulation detection thresholds (FMDTs). We also measured the rate of growth (slope) of auditory brainstem response wave-I amplitude with increasing level as an indirect indicator of cochlear synaptopathy, and the interference inhibition score in the Stroop color and word test (SCWT) as a proxy for inhibition. As expected, performance in the auditory tasks worsened (SRTNs, GDTs, and FMDTs increased), and wave-I slope and SCWT inhibition scores decreased with ageing. Importantly, SRTNs, GDTs, and FMDTs were not related to wave-I slope but worsened with decreasing SCWT inhibition. Furthermore, after partialling out the effect of SCWT inhibition, age was no longer related to SRTNs or GDTs and became less strongly related to FMDTs. Altogether, results suggest that for people with normal audiograms, age-related deficits in auditory temporal processing and speech-in-noise intelligibility are mediated by decreased inhibition rather than cochlear synaptopathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcelo Gómez-Álvarez
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Peter T. Johannesen
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Sónia L. Coelho-de-Sousa
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Georg M. Klump
- Department of Neuroscience and Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
| | - Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Departamento de Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
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6
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Füllgrabe C, Öztürk OC. Immediate Effects of (Simulated) Age-Related Hearing Loss on Cognitive Processing and Performance for the Backward-Digit-Span Task. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:912746. [PMID: 36420309 PMCID: PMC9677092 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.912746] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2022] [Indexed: 02/23/2024] Open
Abstract
The recall of auditorily presented sequences of digits in reverse order (also known as the Backward Digit Span, BDS) is considered to reflect a person's information storage and processing abilities which have been linked to speech-in-noise intelligibility. However, especially in aging research and audiology, persons who are administered the BDS task are often affected by hearing loss (HL). If uncorrected, HL can have immediate assessment-format-related effects on cognitive-test performance and can result, in the long term, in neuroplastic changes impacting cognitive functioning. In the present study, an impairment-simulation approach, mimicking mild-to-moderate age-related HLs typical for persons aged 65, 75, and 85 years, was used in 19 young normal-hearing participants to evaluate the impact of HL on cognitive performance and the cognitive processes probed by the BDS task. Participants completed the BDS task in several listening conditions, as well as several commonly used visual tests of short-term and working memory. The results indicated that BDS performance was impaired by a simulated HL representing that of persons aged 75 years and above. In the normal-hearing condition, BDS performance correlated positively with both performance on tests of short-term memory and performance on tests of working memory. In the listening condition simulating moderate HL (as experienced by the average 85-year-old person), BDS performance only correlated with performance on working-memory tests. In conclusion, simulated (and, by extrapolation, actual) age-related HL negatively affects cognitive-test performance and may change the composition of the cognitive processes associated with the completion of a cognitive task.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ozan Cem Öztürk
- School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom
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7
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Shehabi AM, Prendergast G, Plack CJ. The Relative and Combined Effects of Noise Exposure and Aging on Auditory Peripheral Neural Deafferentation: A Narrative Review. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:877588. [PMID: 35813954 PMCID: PMC9260498 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.877588] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2022] [Accepted: 05/30/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Animal studies have shown that noise exposure and aging cause a reduction in the number of synapses between low and medium spontaneous rate auditory nerve fibers and inner hair cells before outer hair cell deterioration. This noise-induced and age-related cochlear synaptopathy (CS) is hypothesized to compromise speech recognition at moderate-to-high suprathreshold levels in humans. This paper evaluates the evidence on the relative and combined effects of noise exposure and aging on CS, in both animals and humans, using histopathological and proxy measures. In animal studies, noise exposure seems to result in a higher proportion of CS (up to 70% synapse loss) compared to aging (up to 48% synapse loss). Following noise exposure, older animals, depending on their species, seem to either exhibit significant or little further synapse loss compared to their younger counterparts. In humans, temporal bone studies suggest a possible age- and noise-related auditory nerve fiber loss. Based on the animal data obtained from different species, we predict that noise exposure may accelerate age-related CS to at least some extent in humans. In animals, noise-induced and age-related CS in separation have been consistently associated with a decreased amplitude of wave 1 of the auditory brainstem response, reduced middle ear muscle reflex strength, and degraded temporal processing as demonstrated by lower amplitudes of the envelope following response. In humans, the individual effects of noise exposure and aging do not seem to translate clearly into deficits in electrophysiological, middle ear muscle reflex, and behavioral measures of CS. Moreover, the evidence on the combined effects of noise exposure and aging on peripheral neural deafferentation in humans using electrophysiological and behavioral measures is even more sparse and inconclusive. Further research is necessary to establish the individual and combined effects of CS in humans using temporal bone, objective, and behavioral measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adnan M. Shehabi
- Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
- Department of Audiology and Speech Therapy, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine
| | - Garreth Prendergast
- Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Christopher J. Plack
- Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
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8
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Lentz JJ, Humes LE, Kidd GR. Differences in Auditory Perception Between Young and Older Adults When Controlling for Differences in Hearing Loss and Cognition. Trends Hear 2022; 26:23312165211066180. [PMID: 34989641 PMCID: PMC8753078 DOI: 10.1177/23312165211066180] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
This study was designed to examine age effects on various auditory perceptual skills using a large group of listeners (155 adults, 121 aged 60-88 years and 34 aged 18-30 years), while controlling for the factors of hearing loss and working memory (WM). All subjects completed 3 measures of WM, 7 psychoacoustic tasks (24 conditions) and a hearing assessment. Psychophysical measures were selected to tap phenomena thought to be mediated by higher-level auditory function and included modulation detection, modulation detection interference, informational masking (IM), masking level difference (MLD), anisochrony detection, harmonic mistuning, and stream segregation. Principal-components analysis (PCA) was applied to each psychoacoustic test. For 6 of the 7 tasks, a single component represented performance across the multiple stimulus conditions well, whereas the modulation-detection interference (MDI) task required two components to do so. The effect of age was analyzed using a general linear model applied to each psychoacoustic component. Once hearing loss and WM were accounted for as covariates in the analyses, estimated marginal mean thresholds were lower for older adults on tasks based on temporal processing. When evaluated separately, hearing loss led to poorer performance on roughly 1/2 the tasks and declines in WM accounted for poorer performance on 6 of the 8 psychoacoustic components. These results make clear the need to interpret age-group differences in performance on psychoacoustic tasks in light of cognitive declines commonly associated with aging, and point to hearing loss and cognitive declines as negatively influencing auditory perceptual skills.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer J. Lentz
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Larry E. Humes
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Gary R. Kidd
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
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9
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Scheuregger O, Hjortkjær J, Dau T. Identification and Discrimination of Sound Textures in Hearing-Impaired and Older Listeners. Trends Hear 2021; 25:23312165211065608. [PMID: 34939472 PMCID: PMC8721370 DOI: 10.1177/23312165211065608] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Sound textures are a broad class of sounds defined by their homogeneous temporal structure. It has been suggested that sound texture perception is mediated by time-averaged summary statistics measured from early stages of the auditory system. The ability of young normal-hearing (NH) listeners to identify synthetic sound textures increases as the statistics of the synthetic texture approach those of its real-world counterpart. In sound texture discrimination, young NH listeners utilize the fine temporal stimulus information for short-duration stimuli, whereas they switch to a time-averaged statistical representation as the stimulus' duration increases. The present study investigated how younger and older listeners with a sensorineural hearing impairment perform in the corresponding texture identification and discrimination tasks in which the stimuli were amplified to compensate for the individual listeners' loss of audibility. In both hearing impaired (HI) listeners and NH controls, sound texture identification performance increased as the number of statistics imposed during the synthesis stage increased, but hearing impairment was accompanied by a significant reduction in overall identification accuracy. Sound texture discrimination performance was measured across listener groups categorized by age and hearing loss. Sound texture discrimination performance was unaffected by hearing loss at all excerpt durations. The older listeners' sound texture and exemplar discrimination performance decreased for signals of short excerpt duration, with older HI listeners performing better than older NH listeners. The results suggest that the time-averaged statistic representations of sound textures provide listeners with cues which are robust to the effects of age and sensorineural hearing loss.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oliver Scheuregger
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, 5205Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Jens Hjortkjær
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, 5205Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.,Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Kettegård Allé 30, DK-2650 Hvidovre, Denmark
| | - Torsten Dau
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, 5205Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
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10
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Cabrera L, Lorenzini I, Rosen S, Varnet L, Lorenzi C. Temporal integration for amplitude modulation in childhood: Interaction between internal noise and memory. Hear Res 2021; 415:108403. [PMID: 34879987 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2021.108403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2021] [Revised: 11/17/2021] [Accepted: 11/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
It is still unclear whether the gradual improvement in amplitude-modulation (AM) sensitivity typically found in children up to 10 years of age reflects an improvement in "processing efficiency" (the central ability to use information extracted by sensory mechanisms). This hypothesis was tested by evaluating temporal integration for AM, a capacity relying on memory and decision factors. This was achieved by measuring the effect of increasing the number of AM cycles (2 vs 8) on AM-detection thresholds for three groups of children aged from 5 to 11 years and a group of young adults. AM-detection thresholds were measured using a forced-choice procedure and sinusoidal AM (4 or 32 Hz rate) applied to a 1024-Hz pure-tone carrier. All age groups demonstrated temporal integration for AM at both rates; that is, significant improvements in AM sensitivity with a higher number of AM cycles. However, an effect of age is observed as both 5-6 year olds and adults exhibited more temporal integration compared to 7-8 and 10-11 year olds at both rates. This difference is due to: (i) the 5-6 year olds displaying the worst thresholds with 2 AM cycles, but similar thresholds with 8 cycles compared to the 7-8 and 10-11 year olds, and, (ii) adults showing the best thresholds with 8 AM cycles but similar thresholds with 2 cycles compared to the 7-8 and 10-11 year olds. Computational modelling indicated that higher levels of internal noise combined with poorer short-term memory capacities in children accounted for the developmental trends. Improvement in processing efficiency may therefore account for the development of AM detection in childhood. This article is part of the Special Issue Outer hair cell Edited by Joseph Santos-Sacchi and Kumar Navaratnam.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laurianne Cabrera
- Université de Paris, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, F-75006 Paris, France; Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, UCL, United Kingdom.
| | - Irene Lorenzini
- Université de Paris, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, F-75006 Paris, France
| | - Stuart Rosen
- Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, UCL, United Kingdom
| | - Léo Varnet
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (UMR 8248), CNRS, Ecole normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL), Paris, France
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (UMR 8248), CNRS, Ecole normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL), Paris, France
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11
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Palandrani KN, Hoover EC, Stavropoulos T, Seitz AR, Isarangura S, Gallun FJ, Eddins DA. Temporal integration of monaural and dichotic frequency modulation. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 150:745. [PMID: 34470296 PMCID: PMC8337085 DOI: 10.1121/10.0005729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2020] [Revised: 06/17/2021] [Accepted: 07/02/2021] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Frequency modulation (FM) detection at low modulation frequencies is commonly used as an index of temporal fine-structure processing. The present study evaluated the rate of improvement in monaural and dichotic FM across a range of test parameters. In experiment I, dichotic and monaural FM detection was measured as a function of duration and modulator starting phase. Dichotic FM thresholds were lower than monaural FM thresholds and the modulator starting phase had no effect on detection. Experiment II measured monaural FM detection for signals that differed in modulation rate and duration such that the improvement with duration in seconds (carrier) or cycles (modulator) was compared. Monaural FM detection improved monotonically with the number of modulation cycles, suggesting that the modulator is extracted prior to detection. Experiment III measured dichotic FM detection for shorter signal durations to test the hypothesis that dichotic FM relies primarily on the signal onset. The rate of improvement decreased as duration increased, which is consistent with the use of primarily onset cues for the detection of dichotic FM. These results establish that improvement with duration occurs as a function of the modulation cycles at a rate consistent with the independent-samples model for monaural FM, but later cycles contribute less to detection in dichotic FM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine N Palandrani
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
| | - Eric C Hoover
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
| | - Trevor Stavropoulos
- Brain Game Center, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA
| | - Aaron R Seitz
- Department of Psychology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA
| | - Sittiprapa Isarangura
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Mahidol University, Phaya Thai, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
| | - Frederick J Gallun
- Oregon Hearing Research Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA
| | - David A Eddins
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA
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12
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Varnet L, Léger AC, Boucher S, Bonnet C, Petit C, Lorenzi C. Contributions of Age-Related and Audibility-Related Deficits to Aided Consonant Identification in Presbycusis: A Causal-Inference Analysis. Front Aging Neurosci 2021; 13:640522. [PMID: 33732140 PMCID: PMC7956988 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.640522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2020] [Accepted: 02/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
The decline of speech intelligibility in presbycusis can be regarded as resulting from the combined contribution of two main groups of factors: (1) audibility-related factors and (2) age-related factors. In particular, there is now an abundant scientific literature on the crucial role of suprathreshold auditory abilities and cognitive functions, which have been found to decline with age even in the absence of audiometric hearing loss. However, researchers investigating the direct effect of aging in presbycusis have to deal with the methodological issue that age and peripheral hearing loss covary to a large extent. In the present study, we analyzed a dataset of consonant-identification scores measured in quiet and in noise for a large cohort (n = 459, age = 42-92) of hearing-impaired (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. HI listeners were provided with a frequency-dependent amplification adjusted to their audiometric profile. Their scores in the two conditions were predicted from their pure-tone average (PTA) and age, as well as from their Extended Speech Intelligibility Index (ESII), a measure of the impact of audibility loss on speech intelligibility. We relied on a causal-inference approach combined with Bayesian modeling to disentangle the direct causal effects of age and audibility on intelligibility from the indirect effect of age on hearing loss. The analysis revealed that the direct effect of PTA on HI intelligibility scores was 5 times higher than the effect of age. This overwhelming effect of PTA was not due to a residual audibility loss despite amplification, as confirmed by a ESII-based model. More plausibly, the marginal role of age could be a consequence of the relatively little cognitively-demanding task used in this study. Furthermore, the amount of variance in intelligibility scores was smaller for NH than HI listeners, even after accounting for age and audibility, reflecting the presence of additional suprathreshold deficits in the latter group. Although the non-sense-syllable materials and the particular amplification settings used in this study potentially restrict the generalization of the findings, we think that these promising results call for a wider use of causal-inference analysis in audiology, e.g., as a way to disentangle the influence of the various cognitive factors and suprathreshold deficits associated to presbycusis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Léo Varnet
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Études Cognitives, École normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, Paris, France
| | - Agnès C. Léger
- Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, Division of Human Communication, Development & Hearing, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Sophie Boucher
- Complexité du Vivant, Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Paris VI, Paris, France
- Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur, INSERM, Paris, France
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire d'Angers, Angers, France
| | - Crystel Bonnet
- Complexité du Vivant, Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Paris VI, Paris, France
- Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur, INSERM, Paris, France
| | - Christine Petit
- Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur, INSERM, Paris, France
- Collège de France, Paris, France
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Études Cognitives, École normale supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, Paris, France
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13
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Carcagno S, Plack CJ. Effects of age on psychophysical measures of auditory temporal processing and speech reception at low and high levels. Hear Res 2020; 400:108117. [PMID: 33253994 PMCID: PMC7812372 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.108117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2020] [Revised: 10/18/2020] [Accepted: 11/17/2020] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
We found little evidence of greater age-related hearing declines at high sound levels. There are age-related temporal-processing declines independent of hearing loss. No evidence of age-related speech-reception deficits independent of hearing loss.
Age-related cochlear synaptopathy (CS) has been shown to occur in rodents with minimal noise exposure, and has been hypothesized to play a crucial role in age-related hearing declines in humans. It is not known to what extent age-related CS occurs in humans, and how it affects the coding of supra-threshold sounds and speech in noise. Because in rodents CS affects mainly low- and medium-spontaneous rate (L/M-SR) auditory-nerve fibers with rate-level functions covering medium-high levels, it should lead to greater deficits in the processing of sounds at high than at low stimulus levels. In this cross-sectional study the performance of 102 listeners across the age range (34 young, 34 middle-aged, 34 older) was assessed in a set of psychophysical temporal processing and speech reception in noise tests at both low, and high stimulus levels. Mixed-effect multiple regression models were used to estimate the effects of age while partialing out effects of audiometric thresholds, lifetime noise exposure, cognitive abilities (assessed with additional tests), and musical experience. Age was independently associated with performance deficits on several tests. However, only for one out of 13 tests were age effects credibly larger at the high compared to the low stimulus level. Overall these results do not provide much evidence that age-related CS, to the extent to which it may occur in humans according to the rodent model of greater L/M-SR synaptic loss, has substantial effects on psychophysical measures of auditory temporal processing or on speech reception in noise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuele Carcagno
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, United Kingdom.
| | - Christopher J Plack
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, United Kingdom; Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, University of Manchester, Academic Health Science Centre, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
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14
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Whiteford KL, Kreft HA, Oxenham AJ. The role of cochlear place coding in the perception of frequency modulation. eLife 2020; 9:58468. [PMID: 32996463 PMCID: PMC7556860 DOI: 10.7554/elife.58468] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 09/29/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Natural sounds convey information via frequency and amplitude modulations (FM and AM). Humans are acutely sensitive to the slow rates of FM that are crucial for speech and music. This sensitivity has long been thought to rely on precise stimulus-driven auditory-nerve spike timing (time code), whereas a coarser code, based on variations in the cochlear place of stimulation (place code), represents faster FM rates. We tested this theory in listeners with normal and impaired hearing, spanning a wide range of place-coding fidelity. Contrary to predictions, sensitivity to both slow and fast FM correlated with place-coding fidelity. We also used incoherent AM on two carriers to simulate place coding of FM and observed poorer sensitivity at high carrier frequencies and fast rates, two properties of FM detection previously ascribed to the limits of time coding. The results suggest a unitary place-based neural code for FM across all rates and carrier frequencies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelly L Whiteford
- Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
| | - Heather A Kreft
- Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
| | - Andrew J Oxenham
- Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
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15
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Ewert SD, Paraouty N, Lorenzi C. A two‐path model of auditory modulation detection using temporal fine structure and envelope cues. Eur J Neurosci 2020; 51:1265-1278. [DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13846] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2017] [Revised: 01/18/2018] [Accepted: 01/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Stephan D. Ewert
- Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All Universität Oldenburg 26111 Oldenburg Germany
| | - Nihaad Paraouty
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure CNRS PSL Research University Paris France
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure CNRS PSL Research University Paris France
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16
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Moore BCJ. Effect of age on envelope regularity discrimination. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2019; 146:1207. [PMID: 31472568 DOI: 10.1121/1.5122794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2019] [Accepted: 07/31/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The ability to discriminate irregular from regular amplitude modulation was compared for young and older adults with audiometric thresholds within the normal range for frequencies from 250 to 8000 Hz, using the "envelope regularity discrimination" (ERD) test. The amount of irregularity was parametrically varied and quantified by an "irregularity index." The carrier frequency was 2000 Hz, the modulation rate was 8 Hz, and the baseline modulation index was 0.3. Stimuli were presented both at 80 dB sound pressure level (SPL) and at 20 dB sensation level (SL) in the presence of a threshold-equalizing noise. There was a significant effect of level, performance being better at 80 dB SPL than at 20 dB SL. There was also a significant effect of age, performance being worse for the older subjects. There was no significant interaction of level and age. The thresholds for the ERD test were not significantly correlated with absolute thresholds at the test carrier frequency of 2000 Hz, for either group, or for the two groups combined. The worse envelope regularity discrimination for the older group may be related to the age-related synaptopathy that has been established from recent studies of human temporal bones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian C J Moore
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
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17
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Hoover EC, Kinney BN, Bell KL, Gallun FJ, Eddins DA. A Comparison of Behavioral Methods for Indexing the Auditory Processing of Temporal Fine Structure Cues. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2019; 62:2018-2034. [PMID: 31145649 PMCID: PMC6808371 DOI: 10.1044/2019_jslhr-h-18-0217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2018] [Revised: 12/20/2018] [Accepted: 02/13/2019] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Growing evidence supports the inclusion of perceptual tests that quantify the processing of temporal fine structure (TFS) in clinical hearing assessment. Many tasks have been used to evaluate TFS in the laboratory that vary greatly in the stimuli used and whether the judgments require monaural or binaural comparisons of TFS. The purpose of this study was to compare laboratory measures of TFS for inclusion in a battery of suprathreshold auditory tests. A subset of available TFS tasks were selected on the basis of potential clinical utility and were evaluated using metrics that focus on characteristics important for clinical use. Method TFS measures were implemented in replication of studies that demonstrated clinical utility. Monaural, diotic, and dichotic measures were evaluated in 11 young listeners with normal hearing. Measures included frequency modulation (FM) tasks, harmonic frequency shift detection, interaural phase difference (TFS-low frequency), interaural time difference (ITD), monaural gap duration discrimination, and tone detection in noise with and without a difference in interaural phase (N0S0, N0Sπ). Data were compared with published results and evaluated with metrics of consistency and efficiency. Results Thresholds obtained were consistent with published data. There was no evidence of predictive relationships among the measures consistent with a homogenous group. The most stable tasks across repeated testing were TFS-low frequency, diotic and dichotic FM, and N0Sπ. Monaural and diotic FM had the lowest normalized variance and were the most efficient accounting for differences in total test duration, followed by ITD. Conclusions Despite a long stimulus duration, FM tasks dominated comparisons of consistency and efficiency. Small differences separated the dichotic tasks FM, ITD, and N0Sπ. Future comparisons following procedural optimization of the tasks will evaluate clinical efficiency in populations with impairment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric C. Hoover
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa
| | - Brianna N. Kinney
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa
| | - Karen L. Bell
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa
| | - Frederick J. Gallun
- National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Portland VA Medical Center, Oregon
- Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland
| | - David A. Eddins
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa
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18
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Füllgrabe C, Moore BCJ. The Association Between the Processing of Binaural Temporal-Fine-Structure Information and Audiometric Threshold and Age: A Meta-Analysis. Trends Hear 2019; 22:2331216518797259. [PMID: 30261828 PMCID: PMC6166311 DOI: 10.1177/2331216518797259] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to process binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) information, which
influences the perception of speech in spatially distributed soundscapes,
declines with increasing hearing loss and age. Because of the relatively small
sample sizes used in previous studies, and the population-unrepresentative
distribution of hearing loss and ages within study samples, it has been
difficult to determine the relative and combined contributions of hearing loss
and age. The aim of this study was to survey published and unpublished studies
that assessed binaural TFS sensitivity using the TFS-low frequency (LF) test.
Results from 19 studies were collated, yielding sample sizes of 147 to 648,
depending on the test frequency. At least for the test frequency of 500 Hz,
there were at least 67 listeners in each of four adult age groups and the
distribution of audiometric thresholds at the test frequency within each group
was similar to that for the population as a whole. Binaural TFS sensitivity
declined with increasing age across the adult lifespan and with increasing
hearing loss in old adulthood. For all test frequencies, both audiometric
threshold and age were significantly negatively correlated with TFS-LF
sensitivity (r ranging from −0.19 to −0.64) but the correlation
was always significantly higher for age than for audiometric threshold.
Regression analyses showed that the standardized regression coefficient was
greater for age than for audiometric threshold, and that there was a significant
interaction; the effect of increasing age among older listeners was greater when
the hearing loss was ≥30 dB than when it was < 30 dB.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Füllgrabe
- 1 Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK.,2 Hearing Sciences, Division of Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK
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19
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McNair SW, Kayser SJ, Kayser C. Consistent pre-stimulus influences on auditory perception across the lifespan. Neuroimage 2019; 186:22-32. [PMID: 30391564 PMCID: PMC6347568 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.10.085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2018] [Revised: 10/29/2018] [Accepted: 10/31/2018] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
As we get older, perception in cluttered environments becomes increasingly difficult as a result of changes in peripheral and central neural processes. Given the aging society, it is important to understand the neural mechanisms constraining perception in the elderly. In young participants, the state of rhythmic brain activity prior to a stimulus has been shown to modulate the neural encoding and perceptual impact of this stimulus - yet it remains unclear whether, and if so, how, the perceptual relevance of pre-stimulus activity changes with age. Using the auditory system as a model, we recorded EEG activity during a frequency discrimination task from younger and older human listeners. By combining single-trial EEG decoding with linear modelling we demonstrate consistent statistical relations between pre-stimulus power and the encoding of sensory evidence in short-latency EEG components, and more variable relations between pre-stimulus phase and subjects' decisions in longer-latency components. At the same time, we observed a significant slowing of auditory evoked responses and a flattening of the overall EEG frequency spectrum in the older listeners. Our results point to mechanistically consistent relations between rhythmic brain activity and sensory encoding that emerge despite changes in neural response latencies and the relative amplitude of rhythmic brain activity with age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven W McNair
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, 62 Hillhead Street, G12 8QB, United Kingdom
| | - Stephanie J Kayser
- Department for Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr. 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany; Cognitive Interaction Technology - Center of Excellence, Bielefeld University, Inspiration 1, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Christoph Kayser
- Department for Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr. 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany; Cognitive Interaction Technology - Center of Excellence, Bielefeld University, Inspiration 1, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany.
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20
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Grose JH, Buss E, Elmore H. Age-Related Changes in the Auditory Brainstem Response and Suprathreshold Processing of Temporal and Spectral Modulation. Trends Hear 2019; 23:2331216519839615. [PMID: 30977442 PMCID: PMC6463337 DOI: 10.1177/2331216519839615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2018] [Revised: 02/21/2019] [Accepted: 02/22/2019] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether cochlear synaptopathy can be shown to be a viable basis for age-related hearing difficulties in humans and whether it manifests as deficient suprathreshold processing of temporal and spectral modulation. Three experiments were undertaken evaluating the effects of age on (a) the auditory brainstem response as a function of level, (b) temporal modulation detection as a function of level and background noise, and (c) spectral modulation as a function of level. Across the three experiments, a total of 21 older listeners with near-normal audiograms and 29 young listeners with audiometrically normal hearing participated. The auditory brainstem response experiment demonstrated reduced Wave I amplitudes and concomitant reductions in the amplitude ratios of Wave I to Wave V in the older listener group. These findings were interpreted as consistent with an electrophysiological profile of cochlear synaptopathy. The temporal and spectral modulation detection experiments, however, provided no support for the hypothesis of compromised suprathreshold processing in these domains. This pattern of results suggests that even if cochlear synaptopathy can be shown to be a viable basis for age-related hearing difficulties, then temporal and spectral modulation detection paradigms are not sensitive to its presence.
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Affiliation(s)
- John H. Grose
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Emily Buss
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Hollis Elmore
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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21
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Moore BCJ, Mariathasan S, Sęk AP. Effects of Age and Hearing Loss on the Discrimination of Amplitude and Frequency Modulation for 2- and 10-Hz Rates. Trends Hear 2019; 23:2331216519853963. [PMID: 31250705 PMCID: PMC6600487 DOI: 10.1177/2331216519853963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2019] [Revised: 05/07/2019] [Accepted: 05/08/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Detection of frequency modulation (FM) with rate = 10 Hz may depend on conversion of FM to amplitude modulation (AM) in the cochlea, while detection of 2-Hz FM may depend on the use of temporal fine structure (TFS) information. TFS processing may worsen with greater age and hearing loss while AM processing probably does not. A two-stage experiment was conducted to test these ideas while controlling for the effects of detection efficiency. Stage 1 measured psychometric functions for the detection of AM alone and FM alone imposed on a 1-kHz carrier, using 2- and 10-Hz rates. Stage 2 assessed the discrimination of AM from FM at the same modulation rate when the detectability of the AM alone and FM alone was equated. Discrimination was better for the 2-Hz than for the 10-Hz rate for all young normal-hearing subjects and for some older subjects with normal hearing at 1 kHz. Other older subjects with normal hearing showed no clear difference in AM-FM discrimination for the 2- and 10-Hz rates, as was the case for most older hearing-impaired subjects. The results suggest that the ability to use TFS cues is reduced for some older people and most hearing-impaired people.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian C. J. Moore
- Department of Experimental
Psychology, University of Cambridge, England
| | - Sashi Mariathasan
- Department of Experimental
Psychology, University of Cambridge, England
| | - Aleksander P. Sęk
- Faculty of Physics, Institute of
Acoustics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
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22
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Feng T, Chen Q, Xiao Z. Age-Related Differences in the Effects of Masker Cuing on Releasing Chinese Speech From Informational Masking. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1922. [PMID: 30356784 PMCID: PMC6189421 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01922] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2018] [Accepted: 09/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
The aims of the present study were to examine whether familiarity with a masker improves word recognition in speech masking situations and whether there are age-related differences in the effects of masker cuing. Thirty-two older listeners (range = 59–74; mean age = 66.41 years) with high-frequency hearing loss and 32 younger normal-hearing listeners (range = 21–28; mean age = 23.73) participated in this study, all of whom spoke Chinese as their first language. Two experiments were conducted and 16 younger and 16 older listeners were used in each experiment. The masking speech with different content from target speech with syntactically correct but semantically meaningless was a continuous recording of meaningless Chinese sentences spoken by two talkers. The masker level was adjusted to produce signal-to-masker ratios of -12, -8, -4, and 0 dB for the younger participants and -8, -4, 0, and 4 dB for the older participants. Under masker-priming conditions, a priming sentence, spoken by the masker talkers, was presented in quiet three times before a target sentence was presented together with a masker sentence 4 s later. In Experiment 1, using same-sentence masker-priming (identical to the masker sentence), the masker-priming improved the identification of the target sentence for both age groups compared to when no priming was provided. However, the amount of masking release was less in the older adults than in the younger adults. In Experiment 2, two kinds of primes were considered: same-sentence masker-priming, and different-sentence masker-priming (different from the masker sentence in content for each keyword). The results of Experiment 2 showed that both kinds of primes improved the identification of the targets for both age groups. However, the release from speech masking in both priming conditions was less in the older adults than in the younger adults, and the release from speech masking in both age groups was greater with same-sentence masker-priming than with different-sentence masker-priming. These results suggest that both the voice and content cues of a masker could be used to release target speech from maskers in noisy listening conditions. Furthermore, there was an age-related decline in masker-priming-induced release from speech masking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianquan Feng
- College of Teacher Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.,State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Qingrong Chen
- School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
| | - Zhongdang Xiao
- State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
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23
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Wallaert N, Varnet L, Moore BCJ, Lorenzi C. Sensorineural hearing loss impairs sensitivity but spares temporal integration for detection of frequency modulation. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2018; 144:720. [PMID: 30180712 DOI: 10.1121/1.5049364] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2017] [Accepted: 07/20/2018] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
The effect of the number of modulation cycles (N) on frequency-modulation (FM) detection thresholds (FMDTs) was measured with and without interfering amplitude modulation (AM) for hearing-impaired (HI) listeners, using a 500-Hz sinusoidal carrier and FM rates of 2 and 20 Hz. The data were compared with FMDTs for normal-hearing (NH) listeners and AM detection thresholds (AMDTs) for NH and HI listeners [Wallaert, Moore, and Lorenzi (2016). J. Acoust. Soc. 139, 3088-3096; Wallaert, Moore, Ewert, and Lorenzi (2017). J. Acoust. Soc. 141, 971-980]. FMDTs were higher for HI than for NH listeners, but the effect of increasing N was similar across groups. In contrast, AMDTs were lower and the effect of increasing N was greater for HI listeners than for NH listeners. A model of temporal-envelope processing based on a modulation filter-bank and a template-matching decision strategy accounted better for the FMDTs at 20 Hz than at 2 Hz for young NH listeners and predicted greater temporal integration of FM than observed for all groups. These results suggest that different mechanisms underlie AM and FM detection at low rates and that hearing loss impairs FM-detection mechanisms, but preserves the memory and decision processes responsible for temporal integration of FM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Wallaert
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Léo Varnet
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Brian C J Moore
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 75005 Paris, France
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24
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Brooks CJ, Chan YM, Anderson AJ, McKendrick AM. Audiovisual Temporal Perception in Aging: The Role of Multisensory Integration and Age-Related Sensory Loss. Front Hum Neurosci 2018; 12:192. [PMID: 29867415 PMCID: PMC5954093 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00192] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2017] [Accepted: 04/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Within each sensory modality, age-related deficits in temporal perception contribute to the difficulties older adults experience when performing everyday tasks. Since perceptual experience is inherently multisensory, older adults also face the added challenge of appropriately integrating or segregating the auditory and visual cues present in our dynamic environment into coherent representations of distinct objects. As such, many studies have investigated how older adults perform when integrating temporal information across audition and vision. This review covers both direct judgments about temporal information (the sound-induced flash illusion, temporal order, perceived synchrony, and temporal rate discrimination) and judgments regarding stimuli containing temporal information (the audiovisual bounce effect and speech perception). Although an age-related increase in integration has been demonstrated on a variety of tasks, research specifically investigating the ability of older adults to integrate temporal auditory and visual cues has produced disparate results. In this short review, we explore what factors could underlie these divergent findings. We conclude that both task-specific differences and age-related sensory loss play a role in the reported disparity in age-related effects on the integration of auditory and visual temporal information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassandra J Brooks
- Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Yu Man Chan
- Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Andrew J Anderson
- Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Allison M McKendrick
- Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Paraouty N, Stasiak A, Lorenzi C, Varnet L, Winter IM. Dual Coding of Frequency Modulation in the Ventral Cochlear Nucleus. J Neurosci 2018; 38:4123-4137. [PMID: 29599389 PMCID: PMC6596033 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2107-17.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2017] [Revised: 03/18/2018] [Accepted: 03/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Frequency modulation (FM) is a common acoustic feature of natural sounds and is known to play a role in robust sound source recognition. Auditory neurons show precise stimulus-synchronized discharge patterns that may be used for the representation of low-rate FM. However, it remains unclear whether this representation is based on synchronization to slow temporal envelope (ENV) cues resulting from cochlear filtering or phase locking to faster temporal fine structure (TFS) cues. To investigate the plausibility of those encoding schemes, single units of the ventral cochlear nucleus of guinea pigs of either sex were recorded in response to sine FM tones centered at the unit's best frequency (BF). The results show that, in contrast to high-BF units, for modulation depths within the receptive field, low-BF units (<4 kHz) demonstrate good phase locking to TFS. For modulation depths extending beyond the receptive field, the discharge patterns follow the ENV and fluctuate at the modulation rate. The receptive field proved to be a good predictor of the ENV responses for most primary-like and chopper units. The current in vivo data also reveal a high level of diversity in responses across unit types. TFS cues are mainly conveyed by low-frequency and primary-like units and ENV cues by chopper and onset units. The diversity of responses exhibited by cochlear nucleus neurons provides a neural basis for a dual-coding scheme of FM in the brainstem based on both ENV and TFS cues.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Natural sounds, including speech, convey informative temporal modulations in frequency. Understanding how the auditory system represents those frequency modulations (FM) has important implications as robust sound source recognition depends crucially on the reception of low-rate FM cues. Here, we recorded 115 single-unit responses from the ventral cochlear nucleus in response to FM and provide the first physiological evidence of a dual-coding mechanism of FM via synchronization to temporal envelope cues and phase locking to temporal fine structure cues. We also demonstrate a diversity of neural responses with different coding specializations. These results support the dual-coding scheme proposed by psychophysicists to account for FM sensitivity in humans and provide new insights on how this might be implemented in the early stages of the auditory pathway.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nihaad Paraouty
- Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing, The Physiological Laboratory, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs CNRS UMR 8248, École Normale Supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, Paris, France
| | - Arkadiusz Stasiak
- Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing, The Physiological Laboratory, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs CNRS UMR 8248, École Normale Supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, Paris, France
| | - Léo Varnet
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs CNRS UMR 8248, École Normale Supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, Paris, France
| | - Ian M Winter
- Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing, The Physiological Laboratory, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and
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26
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Jennings SG, Chen J, Fultz SE, Ahlstrom JB, Dubno JR. Amplitude modulation detection with a short-duration carrier: Effects of a precursor and hearing loss. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2018; 143:2232. [PMID: 29716275 PMCID: PMC5908713 DOI: 10.1121/1.5031122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2017] [Revised: 03/26/2018] [Accepted: 03/27/2018] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
This study tests the hypothesis that amplitude modulation (AM) detection will be better under conditions where basilar membrane (BM) response growth is expected to be linear rather than compressive. This hypothesis was tested by (1) comparing AM detection for a tonal carrier as a function of carrier level for subjects with and without cochlear hearing impairment (HI), and by (2) comparing AM detection for carriers presented with and without an ipsilateral notched-noise precursor, under the assumption that the precursor linearizes BM responses. Average AM detection thresholds were approximately 5 dB better for subjects with HI than for subjects with normal hearing (NH) at moderate-level carriers. Average AM detection for low-to-moderate level carriers was approximately 2 dB better with the precursor than without the precursor for subjects with NH, whereas precursor effects were absent or smaller for subjects with HI. Although effect sizes were small and individual differences were noted, group differences are consistent with better AM detection for conditions where BM responses are less compressive due to cochlear hearing loss or due to a reduction in cochlear gain. These findings suggest the auditory system may quickly adjust to the local soundscape to increase effective AM depth and improve signal-to-noise ratios.
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Affiliation(s)
- Skyler G Jennings
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Utah, 390 South, 1530 East, BEHS 1201, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
| | - Jessica Chen
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Utah, 390 South, 1530 East, BEHS 1201, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
| | - Sara E Fultz
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, 135 Rutledge Avenue, MSC 550, Charleston, South Carolina 29425-5500, USA
| | - Jayne B Ahlstrom
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, 135 Rutledge Avenue, MSC 550, Charleston, South Carolina 29425-5500, USA
| | - Judy R Dubno
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, 135 Rutledge Avenue, MSC 550, Charleston, South Carolina 29425-5500, USA
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27
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Aushana Y, Souffi S, Edeline JM, Lorenzi C, Huetz C. Robust Neuronal Discrimination in Primary Auditory Cortex Despite Degradations of Spectro-temporal Acoustic Details: Comparison Between Guinea Pigs with Normal Hearing and Mild Age-Related Hearing Loss. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2018; 19:163-180. [PMID: 29302822 PMCID: PMC5878150 DOI: 10.1007/s10162-017-0649-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2017] [Accepted: 12/11/2017] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
This study investigated to which extent the primary auditory cortex of young normal-hearing and mild hearing-impaired aged animals is able to maintain invariant representation of critical temporal-modulation features when sounds are submitted to degradations of fine spectro-temporal acoustic details. This was achieved by recording ensemble of cortical responses to conspecific vocalizations in guinea pigs with either normal hearing or mild age-related sensorineural hearing loss. The vocalizations were degraded using a tone vocoder. The neuronal responses and their discrimination capacities (estimated by mutual information) were analyzed at single recording and population levels. For normal-hearing animals, the neuronal responses decreased as a function of the number of the vocoder frequency bands, so did their discriminative capacities at the single recording level. However, small neuronal populations were found to be robust to the degradations induced by the vocoder. Similar robustness was obtained when broadband noise was added to exacerbate further the spectro-temporal distortions produced by the vocoder. A comparable pattern of robustness to degradations in fine spectro-temporal details was found for hearing-impaired animals. However, the latter showed an overall decrease in neuronal discrimination capacities between vocalizations in noisy conditions. Consistent with previous studies, these results demonstrate that the primary auditory cortex maintains robust neural representation of temporal envelope features for communication sounds under a large range of spectro-temporal degradations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yonane Aushana
- Paris-Saclay Institute of Neurosciences (Neuro-PSI), CNRS UMR 9197, Orsay, France
- Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
- Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
| | - Samira Souffi
- Paris-Saclay Institute of Neurosciences (Neuro-PSI), CNRS UMR 9197, Orsay, France
- Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
- Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
| | - Jean-Marc Edeline
- Paris-Saclay Institute of Neurosciences (Neuro-PSI), CNRS UMR 9197, Orsay, France
- Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
- Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris Sciences & Lettres Research University, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Chloé Huetz
- Paris-Saclay Institute of Neurosciences (Neuro-PSI), CNRS UMR 9197, Orsay, France
- Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
- Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay cedex, France
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28
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Füllgrabe C, Sęk AP, Moore BCJ. Senescent Changes in Sensitivity to Binaural Temporal Fine Structure. Trends Hear 2018; 22:2331216518788224. [PMID: 30027803 PMCID: PMC6055238 DOI: 10.1177/2331216518788224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2018] [Revised: 06/11/2018] [Accepted: 06/12/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Differences in the temporal fine structure (TFS) of sounds at the two ears are used for sound localization and for the perceptual analysis of complex auditory scenes. The ability to process this binaural TFS information is poorer for older than for younger participants, and this may contribute to age-related declines in the ability to understand speech in noisy situations. However, it is unclear how sensitivity to binaural TFS changes across the older age range. This article presents data for a test of binaural sensitivity to TFS, the "TFS-adaptive frequency" (AF) test, for 118 listeners aged 60 to 96 years with normal or near-normal low-frequency hearing, but a variety of patterns of hearing loss at higher frequencies. TFS-AF scores were significantly lower (i.e., poorer) than those for young adults. On average, scores decreased by about 162 Hz for each 10-year increase in age over the range 60 to 85 years. Individual variability increased with increasing age. Scores also declined as low-frequency audiometric thresholds worsened. The results illustrate the range of scores that can be obtained as a function of age and may be useful for the diagnosis and management of age-related hearing difficulties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Füllgrabe
- Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK
| | - Aleksander P. Sęk
- Institute of Acoustics, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
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29
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Assessing the Role of Place and Timing Cues in Coding Frequency and Amplitude Modulation as a Function of Age. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2017; 18:619-633. [PMID: 28429126 DOI: 10.1007/s10162-017-0624-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2016] [Accepted: 03/29/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Natural sounds can be characterized by their fluctuations in amplitude and frequency. Ageing may affect sensitivity to some forms of fluctuations more than others. The present study used individual differences across a wide age range (20-79 years) to test the hypothesis that slow-rate, low-carrier frequency modulation (FM) is coded by phase-locked auditory-nerve responses to temporal fine structure (TFS), whereas fast-rate FM is coded via rate-place (tonotopic) cues, based on amplitude modulation (AM) of the temporal envelope after cochlear filtering. Using a low (500 Hz) carrier frequency, diotic FM and AM detection thresholds were measured at slow (1 Hz) and fast (20 Hz) rates in 85 listeners. Frequency selectivity and TFS coding were assessed using forward masking patterns and interaural phase disparity tasks (slow dichotic FM), respectively. Comparable interaural level disparity tasks (slow and fast dichotic AM and fast dichotic FM) were measured to control for effects of binaural processing not specifically related to TFS coding. Thresholds in FM and AM tasks were correlated, even across tasks thought to use separate peripheral codes. Age was correlated with slow and fast FM thresholds in both diotic and dichotic conditions. The relationship between age and AM thresholds was generally not significant. Once accounting for AM sensitivity, only diotic slow-rate FM thresholds remained significantly correlated with age. Overall, results indicate stronger effects of age on FM than AM. However, because of similar effects for both slow and fast FM when not accounting for AM sensitivity, the effects cannot be unambiguously ascribed to TFS coding.
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30
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Gieseler A, Tahden MAS, Thiel CM, Wagener KC, Meis M, Colonius H. Auditory and Non-Auditory Contributions for Unaided Speech Recognition in Noise as a Function of Hearing Aid Use. Front Psychol 2017; 8:219. [PMID: 28270784 PMCID: PMC5318449 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2016] [Accepted: 02/06/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Differences in understanding speech in noise among hearing-impaired individuals cannot be explained entirely by hearing thresholds alone, suggesting the contribution of other factors beyond standard auditory ones as derived from the audiogram. This paper reports two analyses addressing individual differences in the explanation of unaided speech-in-noise performance among n = 438 elderly hearing-impaired listeners (mean = 71.1 ± 5.8 years). The main analysis was designed to identify clinically relevant auditory and non-auditory measures for speech-in-noise prediction using auditory (audiogram, categorical loudness scaling) and cognitive tests (verbal-intelligence test, screening test of dementia), as well as questionnaires assessing various self-reported measures (health status, socio-economic status, and subjective hearing problems). Using stepwise linear regression analysis, 62% of the variance in unaided speech-in-noise performance was explained, with measures Pure-tone average (PTA), Age, and Verbal intelligence emerging as the three most important predictors. In the complementary analysis, those individuals with the same hearing loss profile were separated into hearing aid users (HAU) and non-users (NU), and were then compared regarding potential differences in the test measures and in explaining unaided speech-in-noise recognition. The groupwise comparisons revealed significant differences in auditory measures and self-reported subjective hearing problems, while no differences in the cognitive domain were found. Furthermore, groupwise regression analyses revealed that Verbal intelligence had a predictive value in both groups, whereas Age and PTA only emerged significant in the group of hearing aid NU.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anja Gieseler
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Cognitive Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany
| | - Maike A S Tahden
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Cognitive Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany
| | - Christiane M Thiel
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Biological Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany
| | - Kirsten C Wagener
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbHOldenburg, Germany
| | - Markus Meis
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbHOldenburg, Germany
| | - Hans Colonius
- Cluster of Excellence 'Hearing4all', University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany; Cognitive Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of OldenburgOldenburg, Germany
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31
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Wallaert N, Moore BCJ, Ewert SD, Lorenzi C. Sensorineural hearing loss enhances auditory sensitivity and temporal integration for amplitude modulation. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2017; 141:971. [PMID: 28253641 DOI: 10.1121/1.4976080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Amplitude-modulation detection thresholds (AMDTs) were measured at 40 dB sensation level for listeners with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (age: 50-64 yr) for a carrier frequency of 500 Hz and rates of 2 and 20 Hz. The number of modulation cycles, N, varied between two and nine. The data were compared with AMDTs measured for young and older normal-hearing listeners [Wallaert, Moore, and Lorenzi (2016). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 139, 3088-3096]. As for normal-hearing listeners, AMDTs were lower for the 2-Hz than for the 20-Hz rate, and AMDTs decreased with increasing N. AMDTs were lower for hearing-impaired listeners than for normal-hearing listeners, and the effect of increasing N was greater for hearing-impaired listeners. A computational model based on the modulation-filterbank concept and a template-matching decision strategy was developed to account for the data. The psychophysical and simulation data suggest that the loss of amplitude compression in the impaired cochlea is mainly responsible for the enhanced sensitivity and temporal integration of temporal envelope cues found for hearing-impaired listeners. The data also suggest that, for AM detection, cochlear damage is associated with increased internal noise, but preserved short-term memory and decision mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Wallaert
- UMR CNRS LSP 8248, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, Ecole normale supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Brian C J Moore
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Stephan D Ewert
- Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All, Universität Oldenburg, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
| | - Christian Lorenzi
- UMR CNRS LSP 8248, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, Ecole normale supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
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32
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Paraouty N, Lorenzi C. Using individual differences to assess modulation-processing mechanisms and age effects. Hear Res 2017; 344:38-49. [DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2016.10.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2016] [Revised: 10/26/2016] [Accepted: 10/27/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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