Factors Underlying Individual Differences in Speech-Recognition Threshold (SRT) in Noise Among Older Adults.

Larry E Humes

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2021.702739

Larry E Humes

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.702739

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Abstract

Many older adults have difficulty understanding speech in noisy backgrounds. In this study, we examined peripheral auditory, higher-level auditory, and cognitive factors that may contribute to such difficulties. A convenience sample of 137 volunteer older adults, 90 women, and 47 men, ranging in age from 47 to 94 years (M = 69.2 and SD = 10.1 years) completed a large battery of tests. Auditory tests included measures of pure-tone threshold, clinical and psychophysical, as well as two measures of gap-detection threshold and four measures of temporal-order identification. The latter included two monaural and two dichotic listening conditions. In addition, cognition was assessed using the complete Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-3rd Edition (WAIS-III). Two monaural measures of speech-recognition threshold (SRT) in noise, the QuickSIN, and the WIN, were obtained from each ear at relatively high presentation levels of 93 or 103 dB SPL to minimize audibility concerns. Group data, both aggregate and by age decade, were evaluated initially to allow comparison to data in the literature. Next, following the application of principal-components factor analysis for data reduction, individual differences in speech-recognition-in-noise performance were examined using multiple-linear-regression analyses. Excellent fits were obtained, accounting for 60–77% of the total variance, with most accounted for by the audibility of the speech and noise stimuli and the severity of hearing loss with the balance primarily associated with cognitive function.

Highlights

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there are 162 million older adults worldwide with ‘‘disabling’’ age-related hearing loss (Stevens et al, 2013)
Prior to examining the factors underlying individual differences in speech-recognition threshold (SRT) in noise, the mean data were examined to establish the representativeness of the data sample in this study
This could be done by just pooling the data from all 137 older adults and comparing means to pooled means from prior studies of aged participants, this was accomplished here by separating the 137 older adults into age decades from 50 to 59 through 80–89 years

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there are 162 million older adults worldwide with ‘‘disabling’’ age-related hearing loss (Stevens et al, 2013). Plomp (1978) provided a synthesis and analysis of much of this early literature regarding the impacts of age-related hearing loss on speech communication arguing that there were two distinct components to the speechcommunication difficulties experienced by older adults, one captured by speech perception in quiet and the other by speech perception in noise This two-component model of speech perception was described earlier by Carhart (1951) and Carhart and Tillman (1970), but the model by Plomp (1978) offered a much more complete and detailed characterization of these two components. Speech perception in quiet was driven almost entirely by the inaudibility of the speech signal arising from the measured pure-tone hearing loss and there has been broad consensus about this in the literature, both prior to Plomp (1978) and since (e.g., Humes and Dubno, 2010)

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