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Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference

Low-frequency interaural time differences and high-frequency interaural level differences (ILDs) are used to localize sounds in the horizontal plane. Older listeners appear to be worse at horizontal-plane sound localization to compared younger listeners, but little is understood about age-related ch...

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Autor principal: Goupell, Matthew J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35966775
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.887401
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author Goupell, Matthew J.
author_facet Goupell, Matthew J.
author_sort Goupell, Matthew J.
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description Low-frequency interaural time differences and high-frequency interaural level differences (ILDs) are used to localize sounds in the horizontal plane. Older listeners appear to be worse at horizontal-plane sound localization to compared younger listeners, but little is understood about age-related changes to across-frequency binaural processing. This study investigated if the frequency dependence of across-frequency ILD processing is altered for older compared to younger listeners, which was done by using an across-frequency binaural interference task (when the interaural difference sensitivity for a target sound is decreased by a spectrally remote interfering sound with zero interaural differences). It was hypothesized that as listeners experience advancing age and age-related high-frequency hearing loss (i.e., presbycusis), they will demonstrate worse binaural performance and experience more across-channel binaural interference (because of age-related temporal processing deficits), and will increasingly be affected by interferers at lower frequencies (because of age-related hearing loss) when compared to younger listeners. There were 11 older (>65 yrs) and 20 younger (<30 yrs) listeners with normal to near-normal audiometric thresholds up to 2 kHz. They were tested using a left-right ILD lateralization discrimination task. Single-tone ILD discrimination thresholds and across-frequency binaural interference were measured at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8 kHz. ILD thresholds and interference were about twice as large for older compared to younger listeners. Interferers ≤1 kHz produced 2–3 times as much across-frequency binaural interference for older compared to younger listeners. Hearing thresholds were significant predictors of single-tone ILD thresholds; in addition, both target and interferer hearing thresholds were significant predictors of binaural interference. The results suggest a reweighting of binaural information that occurs with advancing age and age-related high-frequency hearing loss. This evidence of plasticity may help explain some of the age-related changes in spatial-hearing abilities.
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spelling pubmed-93638992022-08-11 Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference Goupell, Matthew J. Front Aging Neurosci Aging Neuroscience Low-frequency interaural time differences and high-frequency interaural level differences (ILDs) are used to localize sounds in the horizontal plane. Older listeners appear to be worse at horizontal-plane sound localization to compared younger listeners, but little is understood about age-related changes to across-frequency binaural processing. This study investigated if the frequency dependence of across-frequency ILD processing is altered for older compared to younger listeners, which was done by using an across-frequency binaural interference task (when the interaural difference sensitivity for a target sound is decreased by a spectrally remote interfering sound with zero interaural differences). It was hypothesized that as listeners experience advancing age and age-related high-frequency hearing loss (i.e., presbycusis), they will demonstrate worse binaural performance and experience more across-channel binaural interference (because of age-related temporal processing deficits), and will increasingly be affected by interferers at lower frequencies (because of age-related hearing loss) when compared to younger listeners. There were 11 older (>65 yrs) and 20 younger (<30 yrs) listeners with normal to near-normal audiometric thresholds up to 2 kHz. They were tested using a left-right ILD lateralization discrimination task. Single-tone ILD discrimination thresholds and across-frequency binaural interference were measured at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8 kHz. ILD thresholds and interference were about twice as large for older compared to younger listeners. Interferers ≤1 kHz produced 2–3 times as much across-frequency binaural interference for older compared to younger listeners. Hearing thresholds were significant predictors of single-tone ILD thresholds; in addition, both target and interferer hearing thresholds were significant predictors of binaural interference. The results suggest a reweighting of binaural information that occurs with advancing age and age-related high-frequency hearing loss. This evidence of plasticity may help explain some of the age-related changes in spatial-hearing abilities. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9363899/ /pubmed/35966775 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.887401 Text en Copyright © 2022 Goupell. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Aging Neuroscience
Goupell, Matthew J.
Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title_full Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title_fullStr Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title_full_unstemmed Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title_short Age-Related Changes in Interaural-Level-Difference-Based Across-Frequency Binaural Interference
title_sort age-related changes in interaural-level-difference-based across-frequency binaural interference
topic Aging Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35966775
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.887401
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