TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of age on concurrent vowel perception in acoustic and simulated electroacoustic hearing
AU - Arehart, Kathryn H.
AU - Souza, Pamela E.
AU - Muralimanohar, Ramesh Kumar
AU - Miller, Christi Wise
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/2/1
Y1 - 2011/2/1
N2 - Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated the effects of age on the use of fundamental frequency differences (ΔF0) in the perception of competing synthesized vowels in simulations of electroacoustic and cochlear-implant hearing. Method: Twelve younger listeners with normal hearing and 13 older listeners with (near) normal hearing were evaluated in their use of ΔF0 in the perception of competing synthesized vowels for 3 conditions: unprocessed synthesized vowels (UNP), envelope-vocoded synthesized vowels that simulated a cochlear implant (VOC), and synthesized vowels processed to simulate electroacoustic stimulation (EAS) hearing. Tasks included (a) multiplicity, which required listeners to identify whether a stimulus contained 1 or 2 sounds and (b) double-vowel identification, which required listeners to attach phonemic labels to the competing synthesized vowels. Results: Multiplicity perception was facilitated by ΔF0 in UNP and EAS but not in VOC, with no age-related deficits evident. Double-vowel identification was facilitated by ΔF0, with ΔF 0 benefit largest in UNP, reduced in EAS, and absent in VOC. Age adversely affected overall identification and ΔF0 benefit on the double-vowel task. Conclusions: Some but not all older listeners derived ΔF0 benefit in EAS hearing. This variability may partly be due to how listeners are able to draw on higher-level processing resources in extracting and integrating cues in EAS hearing.
AB - Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated the effects of age on the use of fundamental frequency differences (ΔF0) in the perception of competing synthesized vowels in simulations of electroacoustic and cochlear-implant hearing. Method: Twelve younger listeners with normal hearing and 13 older listeners with (near) normal hearing were evaluated in their use of ΔF0 in the perception of competing synthesized vowels for 3 conditions: unprocessed synthesized vowels (UNP), envelope-vocoded synthesized vowels that simulated a cochlear implant (VOC), and synthesized vowels processed to simulate electroacoustic stimulation (EAS) hearing. Tasks included (a) multiplicity, which required listeners to identify whether a stimulus contained 1 or 2 sounds and (b) double-vowel identification, which required listeners to attach phonemic labels to the competing synthesized vowels. Results: Multiplicity perception was facilitated by ΔF0 in UNP and EAS but not in VOC, with no age-related deficits evident. Double-vowel identification was facilitated by ΔF0, with ΔF 0 benefit largest in UNP, reduced in EAS, and absent in VOC. Age adversely affected overall identification and ΔF0 benefit on the double-vowel task. Conclusions: Some but not all older listeners derived ΔF0 benefit in EAS hearing. This variability may partly be due to how listeners are able to draw on higher-level processing resources in extracting and integrating cues in EAS hearing.
KW - Aging
KW - Competing speech perception
KW - Electroacoustic hearing
KW - Envelope and fine structure perception
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U2 - 10.1044/1092-4388(2010/09-0145)
DO - 10.1044/1092-4388(2010/09-0145)
M3 - Article
C2 - 20689036
AN - SCOPUS:79551697896
VL - 54
SP - 190
EP - 210
JO - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JF - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
SN - 1092-4388
IS - 1
ER -