Age-related differences in discrimination of temporal intervals in accented tone sequences

“Threshold estimates derived by this adaptive rule corresponded to values associated with 70.7% correct discrimination (Levitt, 1971).”

“Additionally, all listeners passed a screening test for general cognitive awareness (Pfeiffer, 1977).”

“This observation is most evident for listening tasks that utilize sentence-length speech samples presented at rapid presentation rates, produced either by fast talkers or time-compression techniques applied to speech waveforms (Wingfield et al., 1985; Gordon-Salant and Fitzgibbons, 1993; Tun, 1998).”

“Most of the experimental tasks used relatively simple stimuli and asked listeners to detect brief temporal gaps between successive sounds (e.g., Schneider et al., 1994; Snell, 1997; Schneider and Hamstra, 1999), or discriminate changes in the duration of time intervals separating pairs of stimulus…”

“…tasks used relatively simple stimuli and asked listeners to detect brief temporal gaps between successive sounds (e.g., Schneider et al., 1994; Snell, 1997; Schneider and Hamstra, 1999), or discriminate changes in the duration of time intervals separating pairs of stimulus markers (Abel et…”

“This observation is most evident for listening tasks that utilize sentence-length speech samples presented at rapid presentation rates, produced either by fast talkers or time-compression techniques applied to speech waveforms (Wingfield et al., 1985; Gordon-Salant and Fitzgibbons, 1993; Tun, 1998).”

“, 1994; Snell, 1997; Schneider and Hamstra, 1999), or discriminate changes in the duration of time intervals separating pairs of stimulus markers (Abel et al., 1990; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1994; Grose et al, 2006).”

“Research on this topic is presently limited in scope, although at least one investigation reports that older listeners do have problems recognizing accented English sentences (Burda et al., 2003).”

“, 1994; Snell, 1997; Schneider and Hamstra, 1999), or discriminate changes in the duration of time intervals separating pairs of stimulus markers (Abel et al., 1990; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1994; Grose et al, 2006).”

“For example, one initial experiment (Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1995) compared younger and older listeners’ duration discrimination thresholds for simple isolated tone bursts to corresponding thresholds measured for the same tone bursts when embedded as components within sentence-length…”

“This observation is most evident for listening tasks that utilize sentence-length speech samples presented at rapid presentation rates, produced either by fast talkers or time-compression techniques applied to speech waveforms (Wingfield et al., 1985; Gordon-Salant and Fitzgibbons, 1993; Tun, 1998).”

“This outcome is essentially the same as observed by Hirsh et al. (1990) for younger listeners, who reported IOI DLs of 5%-6% for corresponding 200-ms sequence IOIs across a range of sequence positions.”

“…detect brief temporal gaps between successive sounds (e.g., Schneider et al., 1994; Snell, 1997; Schneider and Hamstra, 1999), or discriminate changes in the duration of time intervals separating pairs of stimulus markers (Abel et al., 1990; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1994; Grose et al, 2006).”

“This evidence comes from experiments that assessed listener sensitivity to changes in the tempo of stimulus sequences consisting of five identical tone bursts separated equally by silent intervals (Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 2001).”

“Research on this topic is presently limited in scope, although at least one investigation reports that older listeners do have problems recognizing accented English sentences (Burda et al., 2003).”

“Other studies examined listeners’ abilities to recognize or discriminate changes in the temporal ordering of sounds in a sequence (Trainor and Trehub, 1989; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1998; Shrivastav et al., 2008).”

“Other studies examined listeners’ abilities to recognize or discriminate changes in the temporal ordering of sounds in a sequence (Trainor and Trehub, 1989; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1998; Shrivastav et al., 2008).”

“The preservation of sequence timing was considered important because the introduction of variable timing within sequences was observed previously to have an important independent influence on discrimination performance of older listeners (Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 2004).”

“6), normal middle ear function as assessed by tympanometry, and acoustic reflex thresholds that were within the 90th percentile for a given pure tone threshold (Gelfand et al., 1990).”

“It should be noted also that the present IOI DLs of the younger listeners with the unaccented sequences are considerably smaller than corresponding IOI DLs reported previously for simple sequences comprised of only two identical tone bursts separated by a silent interval (Fitzgibbons et al., 2007).”

“Other studies examined listeners’ abilities to recognize or discriminate changes in the temporal ordering of sounds in a sequence (Trainor and Trehub, 1989; Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant, 1998; Shrivastav et al., 2008).”

“Older people also experience difficulty discerning distinct sounds delivered in succession (Fitzgibbons & Gordon-Salant, 2010; Fitzgibbons, Gordon-Salant, & Barrett, 2007).”

“Several recent reviews of this topic are available, by Schneider et al. (2010), Humes and Dubno (2010), Fitzgibbons and Gordon-Salant (2010), Humes et al. (2012) and others.”

“In addition, prevailing evidence indicates that auditory spectral and temporal processing deficits start to manifest themselves in middle age humans [62-64], and in animal models starting in middle age [65, 66].”