Random Gap Detection Test: A Useful Measure of Auditory Ageing (original) (raw)
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Marking time: The precise measurement of auditory gap detection across the lifespan
Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 2016
Deficits of temporal resolution are thought to contribute to speech understanding in noise difficulties and may be documented using auditory gap detection thresholds (GDTs). It is important to establish the appropriate methods to measure GDTs clinically. The USF Psychoaoustics Lab has established GDTs for a variety of stimuli, ages (7-90 years), equipment, degrees of hearing loss, psychophysical paradigms, neurophysiological paradigms, marker relationships (within-channel, across-channel), time points, and presentation ears (left, right, diotic). A number of important findings are discussed: 1. Best stimulus for measurement of GDTs is narrow-band noise. 2. GDTs improve from 7 to 9 years of age, stabilize between 9 and 40 years of age, and deteriorate with age thereafter. 3. GDTs may be measured reliably using a variety of equipment. 4. Hearing loss has a minor impact on GDTs. 5. A 2-interval psychophysical paradigm may be used to measure GDTs. 6. GDTs may be documented using the P1-N1-P2 auditory evoked potential. 7. Across-channel GDTs provide different information than within-channel GDTs. 8. GDTs are reliable within and across test sessions. 9. GDTs do not differ across ear conditions. A stable and sensitive measure of temporal resolution that may be used in a clinical setting to assess temporal resolution is recommended and discussed.
Effects of age and frequency disparity on gap discrimination
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2002
Temporal discrimination was measured using a gap discrimination paradigm for three groups of listeners with normal hearing: ͑1͒ ages 18 -30, ͑2͒ ages 40-52, and ͑3͒ ages 62-74 years. Normal hearing was defined as pure-tone thresholds р25 dB HL from 250 to 6000 Hz and р30 dB HL at 8000 Hz. Silent gaps were placed between 1 4 -octave bands of noise centered at one of six frequencies. The noise band markers were paired so that the center frequency of the leading marker was fixed at 2000 Hz, and the center frequency of the trailing marker varied randomly across experimental runs. Gap duration discrimination was significantly poorer for older listeners than for young and middle-aged listeners, and the performance of the young and middle-aged listeners did not differ significantly. Age group differences were more apparent for the more frequency-disparate stimuli ͑2000-Hz leading marker followed by a 500-Hz trailing marker͒ than for the fixed-frequency stimuli ͑2000-Hz lead and 2000-Hz trail͒. The gap duration difference limens of the older listeners increased more rapidly with frequency disparity than those of the other listeners. Because age effects were more apparent for the more frequency-disparate conditions, and gap discrimination was not affected by differences in hearing sensitivity among listeners, it is suggested that gap discrimination depends upon temporal mechanisms that deteriorate with age and stimulus complexity but are unaffected by hearing loss.
Biological Markers of Auditory Gap Detection in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults
2010
The capability of processing rapid fluctuations in the temporal envelope of sound declines with age and this contributes to older adults' difficulties in understanding speech. Although, changes in central auditory processing during aging have been proposed as cause for communication deficits, an open question remains which stage of processing is mostly affected by age related changes. We investigated auditory temporal resolution in young, middle-aged, and older listeners with neuromagnetic evoked responses to gap stimuli with different leading marker and gap durations. Signal components specific for processing the physical details of sound stimuli as well as the auditory objects as a whole were derived from the evoked activity and served as biological markers for temporal processing at different cortical levels. Early oscillatory 40-Hz responses were elicited by the onsets of leading and lagging markers and indicated central registration of the gap with similar amplitude in all three age groups. High-gamma responses were predominantly related to the duration of no-gap stimuli or to the duration of gaps when present, and decreased in amplitude and phase locking with increasing age. Correspondingly, low-frequency activity around 200 ms and later was reduced in middle aged and older participants. Highgamma band, and long-latency low-frequency responses were interpreted as reflecting higher order processes related to the grouping of sound items into auditory objects and updating of memory for these objects. The observed effects indicate that age-related changes in auditory acuity have more to do with higher-order brain functions than previously thought.
Purpose: Gap detection and the temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF) are 2 common methods to obtain behavioral estimates of auditory temporal acuity. However, the agreement between the 2 measures is not clear. This study compares results from these 2 methods and their dependencies on listener age and hearing status. Method: Gap detection thresholds and the parameters that describe the TMTF (sensitivity and cutoff frequency) were estimated for young and older listeners who were naive to the experimental tasks. Stimuli were 800-Hz-wide noises with upper frequency limits of 2400 Hz, presented at 85 dB SPL. A 2-track procedure (Shen & Richards, 2013) was used for the efficient estimation of the TMTF. Results: No significant correlation was found between gap detection threshold and the sensitivity or the cutoff frequency of the TMTF. No significant effect of age and hearing loss on either the gap detection threshold or the TMTF cutoff frequency was found, while the TMTF sensitivity improved with increasing hearing threshold and worsened with increasing age. Conclusion: Estimates of temporal acuity using gap detection and TMTF paradigms do not seem to provide a consistent description of the effects of listener age and hearing status on temporal envelope processing.
Age-related changes in temporal resolution revisited
A special thank you is owed to my husband and children, who have showered me not only with love and support but also with perspective. I would also like to thank Carolyn Brown and Paul Abbas for their guidance during this project. Finally, thanks are owed to my friends and colleagues for their encouragement. v ABSTRACT A decline in temporal resolution, or the ability of the auditory system to track fast changes in incoming sounds, is one factor thought to contribute to difficulties in speech perception that accompany the aging process. Aging effects on gap detection abilities, using behavioral or isolated electrophysiologic measures, have been studied previously. However, peripheral and central electrophysiological, and behavioral measures of temporal resolution have not been examined in the same subjects. Also, the relationship between age-related changes in temporal resolution and speech perception is still unclear, as is their interaction with cognition. By revisiting this question in CI users, it was possible to study aging effects on temporal resolution without the potential confound of age-related hearing loss. In addition, the device allows for manipulations of the temporal properties of a signal without concomitant changes in its spectrum, and for auditorynerve recordings. This study had two main goals: (1) to determine how aging affects temporal resolution at the auditory periphery, the cortex and perceptually; and (2) to explore the relationship between age-related changes in temporal resolution, general cognitive functioning and speech perception. Results showed that when the auditory system is stimulated with a cochlear implant, few effects of advancing age on temporal resolution are evident. It is possible that, by stimulating the auditory nerve with precise timing, cochlear implants can help users overcome temporal resolution deficits. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, it is possible that previous studies that reported age effects on temporal resolution were vi largely influenced by differences in peripheral processing, which were minimized in this study by the use of a cochlear implant. Across the age groups, digit span was the only variable significantly correlated with speech perception in noise and perception of time-compressed speech. A longer memory span for digits was associated with better outcomes in both tests of speech perception. This finding is consistent with previous research, and underscores the notion that cognitive factors, not age, may be more important for speech perception.
Relationship of gap detection and speech recognition in noise in younger versus older listeners
169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
This study explored a possible correlation between 1) gap detection ability and 2) speech recognition in noise. The participants were younger and older individuals with normal hearing. They completed a cognitive screening, hearing tests, and the Gaps-in-Noise (GIN) and Revised Speech Perception in Noise (R-SPIN) tests. We did not find a correlation between perception of gaps in noise and speech recognition in noise. Older adults received lower scores on the GIN test and still had speech recognition in noise performance that was equally good as that of the younger participants. Our conclusion is that speech recognition in noise is not significantly affected by reduced gap-detection ability, at least for the materials used in this study.
Age-related changes in auditory temporal perception
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1987
The discrimination of signal and silence duration was evaluated in 6-month-old infants, 5 1/2-year-old children, and adults. Listeners were tested with a conditioned-discrimination procedure in which they were presented a sequence of 18 white-noise bursts and trained to discriminate a change in duration of the middle 6 signal or silence elements. There were no differential effects on performance for changes in signal compared to silence duration. At each age, performance varied only as a function of magnitude of duration change. Infants discriminated duration changes of 20 ms or greater, children discriminated 15 ms, and adults discriminated changes as small as 10 ms. These findings are consistent with other research in revealing age-related improvements in auditory temporal perception.
Gap detection in infants, children, and adults
Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, 1995
Listeners who were 6.5 months, 12 months, 5 years, and 21 years of age were required to discriminate a pair of 500-Hz, Gaussian-enveloped tone pips from a short 500-Hz tone of the same duration and total energy. Groups of 6.5-month-old infants were tested on a single gap duration: 8, 12, 16, 20, 28, or 40 ms. Groups of 12-month-olds were also tested on a single gap duration: 8, 12, 16, or 20 ms. The 5-year-old children and adults were tested on gap durations of 8, 12, and 16 ms. The mean performance of 6.5-month-olds significantly exceeded chance levels on all gap durations except 8 ms, and that of 12-month-olds was above chance levels on all gap durations. For 5-year-old children and adults, mean performance also exceeded chance levels for all gap durations tested. Adults performed significantly better than 5-year-old children on gap durations of 12 and 16 ms. Gap-detection thresholds, defined by a performance criterion of dЈϭ0.5, were estimated at 11, 5.6, and 5.2 ms for infants, children, and adults, respectively. It is likely that smaller adult-infant differences in the present study compared to those reported in previous research stem from our use of Gaussian-enveloped tone pips and the consequent minimization of adaptation effects.
Infant Auditory Temporal Acuity: Gap Detection
Child Development, 1992
. The development of auditory temporal acuity during infancy was examined in 3-, 6-, and 12-month-old infants and in adults using the gap detection paradigm. Listeners detected a series of gaps, or silent intervals, of variable duration in a broadband noise. In order to vary the acoustic frequencies available to the listener, a high-pass noise was used to mask frequencies above specified cutoffs. High-pass maskers with cutoffs of 500, 2,000, and 8,000 Hz were used. The minimum detectable gap was determined using the Observer-based Psychoacoustic Procedure. The thresholds of 3-and 6-month-olds were considerably poorer than those of the adults, although the effect of masker condition was about the same for these 3 groups. The thresholds of 12-month-olds were significantly worse than the adults when the stimulus was unmasked or when the masker cutoff frequency was 2,000 or 8,000 Hz. When the masker cutoff frequency was 500 Hz, 12-month-olds fell into 2 groups: some had gap thresholds that were about the same as 3-and 6-month-oIds, while some had gap thresholds that approached those of adults. In a second experiment, a larger group of 12-month-olds were tested with a 500-Hz masker cutoff. Average performance of 12-month-olds was about the same as that of 3-and 6-month-olds in Experiment 1. Some infants attained thresholds close to those of adults. Thus, gap detection thresholds are quite poor in infants, although the similarity of the effect of frequency on performance in infants and adults suggests that the mechanisms governing temporal resolution in infants operate qualitiatively like those in adults. Temporal cues have frequently been creased progressively between 3 and 11 shown to be critical to both human and non-years. A similar age effect was observed for human communication (e.g., all tone frequencies and intensities. Irwin, Pisoni, 1977). Moreover, a relation between meatemporal acuity and the ability to under-sured gap detection threshold, or the ministand speech has been demonstrated among mally detectable silent interval in a continuhuman listeners (e.g., Dreschler & Plomp, ous sound, for children and adults. They 1980). The few studies examining the devel-found that 6-year-olds had higher gap detecopment of temporal acuity suggest that im-tion thresholds than older children or adults, maturity of this capacity may even persist This effect was more pronounced at lower into childhood. intensities and when a low-frequency noise determined the duration of a silent interval band was the stimulus. In contrast, Wightbetween two tone bursts required for chil-man, Allen, Dolan, Kistler, and Jamieson dren to report hearing two sounds rather (1989) found that 6-year-olds were adultlike than one sound. The threshold duration de-in gap detection at both 400 and 2,000 Hz.