Abstract
The study measured listener sensitivity to increments in the inter-onset intervals (IOIs) separating successive 20-ms 4000-Hz tone bursts in isochronous sequences. Stimulus sequences contained from 2–6 tone bursts, separated equally by IOIs in the range of 25–100 ms across stimulus conditions. Difference limens (DLs) for increments of all tonal IOIs were measured to assess listener sensitivity to changes in sequence rate. A DL was also measured for increments of a single IOI located at a fixed position within 6-tone sequences. Listeners included younger and older normal-hearing adults and older adults with high-frequency hearing loss. The results revealed that the relative DLs for sequence rate decreased as the magnitude of the reference IOI and the number of sequence components increased. The relative DL for a single interval embedded within a six-tone sequence was smaller than corresponding DLs measured with two-tone sequences, but only for brief reference IOIs. The discrimination performance of the older listeners was poorer than that of the younger listeners, especially for two-tone sequences with the shortest reference IOIs. The findings are interpreted within the context of multiple-look mechanisms and possible age-related differences in the sensory coding of signal onsets. [Research supported by the National Institute on Aging, NIH.]
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