Suprathreshold Processing and Cocktail Party Listening in Younger and Older Adults with Normal Hearing

Abstract

Present study aimed to investigate the effect of age and suprathreshold processing on cocktail party listening in individuals with normal hearing sensitivity. A total of 92 participants with normal hearing sensitivity were included in the study. They were divided into two groups based on their age. Fifty two young normal hearing adults in the age range of 20–40 years and 40 older normal hearing adults in the age range of 60-80 years. Tests administered included speech perception in noise test, spatial selective attention, gap detection thresholds, temporal modulation transfer function, inter-aural time difference, differential limen of frequency and ripple noise discrimination. Results showed that older adults performed poorer than younger adults in all the tests. Also, temporal cues showed a better relation with speech perception in noise compared to the spectral cues. This can be attributed to the disrupted neural synchrony which is due to poor frequency selectivity as observed through ripple noise discrimination. Individuals rely more on temporal cues due to poorer frequency resolution and phase locking mechanism and also on top down processes such as selective attention too. A degraded speech input would lead them to rely more on their higher cognition.