Abstract
Aging and hearing loss cause speech understanding deficits, particularly in the presence of competing sounds, as well as temporal processing deficits, including binaural encoding of interaural time differences (ITDs). However, there is little understanding of the independent effects of aging and hearing loss on across-frequency ITD processing, which demonstrates a clear dependence on frequency weighting or “dominant” region around 600–700Hz. We hypothesize that aging and hearing loss will reduce extent of laterality of ITDs and will shift the frequency weighting lower. Young normal-hearing, older normal-hearing, and older hearing-impaired listeners will be tested on an intracranial lateralization task. The stimuli will consist of narrowband noises. They will have upper frequency boundaries = 500, 600, 700, or 800 Hz, bandwidths = 50, 100, 200, or 400 Hz, and ITDs = 0, ±0.5, ±1, ±1.5, and ±2 ms. These findings will help us better understand the role of the dominant region in across-frequency ITD processing, and how age- and hearing-loss-related changes in ITD processing may contribute to spatial-hearing deficits.
Published Version
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