TY - JOUR
T1 - Age effects on neural representation and perception of silence duration cues in speech
AU - Roque, Lindsey
AU - Gaskins, Casey
AU - Gordon-Salant, Sandra
AU - Goupell, Matthew J.
AU - Andersona, Samira
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the American Hearing Research Foundation (S. A.) and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health under Award R21DC015843 (S. A.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The authors wish to thank Calli Fodor and Erin Walter for their assistance with data collection and analysis.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Purpose: Degraded temporal processing associated with aging may be a contributing factor to older adults’ hearing difficulties, especially in adverse listening environments. This degraded processing may affect the ability to distinguish between words based on temporal duration cues. The current study investigates the effects of aging and hearing loss on cortical and subcortical representation of temporal speech components and on the perception of silent interval duration cues in speech. Method: Identification functions for the words DISH and DITCH were obtained on a 7-step continuum of silence duration (0-60 ms) prior to the final fricative in participants who are younger with normal hearing (YNH), older with normal hearing (ONH), and older with hearing impairment (OHI). Frequency-following responses and cortical auditoryevoked potentials were recorded to the 2 end points of the continuum. Auditory brainstem responses to clicks were obtained to verify neural integrity and to compare group differences in auditory nerve function. A multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to determine the peripheral or central factors that contributed to perceptual performance. Results: ONH and OHI participants required longer silence durations to identify DITCH than did YNH participants. Frequency-following responses showed reduced phase locking and poorer morphology, and cortical auditoryevoked potentials showed prolonged latencies in ONH and OHI participants compared with YNH participants. No group differences were noted for auditory brainstem response Wave I amplitude or Wave V/I ratio. After accounting for the possible effects of hearing loss, linear regression analysis revealed that both midbrain and cortical processing contributed to the variance in the DISH-DITCH perceptual identification functions. Conclusions: These results suggest that age-related deficits in the ability to encode silence duration cues may be a contributing factor in degraded speech perception. In particular, degraded response morphology relates to performance on perceptual tasks based on silence duration contrasts between words.
AB - Purpose: Degraded temporal processing associated with aging may be a contributing factor to older adults’ hearing difficulties, especially in adverse listening environments. This degraded processing may affect the ability to distinguish between words based on temporal duration cues. The current study investigates the effects of aging and hearing loss on cortical and subcortical representation of temporal speech components and on the perception of silent interval duration cues in speech. Method: Identification functions for the words DISH and DITCH were obtained on a 7-step continuum of silence duration (0-60 ms) prior to the final fricative in participants who are younger with normal hearing (YNH), older with normal hearing (ONH), and older with hearing impairment (OHI). Frequency-following responses and cortical auditoryevoked potentials were recorded to the 2 end points of the continuum. Auditory brainstem responses to clicks were obtained to verify neural integrity and to compare group differences in auditory nerve function. A multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to determine the peripheral or central factors that contributed to perceptual performance. Results: ONH and OHI participants required longer silence durations to identify DITCH than did YNH participants. Frequency-following responses showed reduced phase locking and poorer morphology, and cortical auditoryevoked potentials showed prolonged latencies in ONH and OHI participants compared with YNH participants. No group differences were noted for auditory brainstem response Wave I amplitude or Wave V/I ratio. After accounting for the possible effects of hearing loss, linear regression analysis revealed that both midbrain and cortical processing contributed to the variance in the DISH-DITCH perceptual identification functions. Conclusions: These results suggest that age-related deficits in the ability to encode silence duration cues may be a contributing factor in degraded speech perception. In particular, degraded response morphology relates to performance on perceptual tasks based on silence duration contrasts between words.
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U2 - 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-H-ASCC7-18-0076
DO - 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-H-ASCC7-18-0076
M3 - Article
C2 - 31026197
AN - SCOPUS:85065293737
SN - 1092-4388
VL - 62
SP - 1099
EP - 1116
JO - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JF - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
IS - 4
ER -