Sensitivity to Interaural Phase in Older Hearing-Impaired Listeners Correlates With Nonauditory Trail Making Scores and With a Spatial Auditory Task of Unrelated Peripheral Origin.
Olaf Strelcyk, Pavel Zahorik, James Shehorn and 2 others
PMID 31455167WHAT IT FOUND
In 20 older adults with hearing loss, poor ability to detect sound timing differences correlated strongly with slow performance on a visual tracking task.
This suggests the hearing test may reflect general cognitive or spatial processing speed rather than just ear damage.
Key findings
01Performance on the interaural phase difference (IPD) discrimination task was strongly correlated with the time taken to complete the Trail Making Test Part B, a measure of executive function and processing speed.
02The correlation between IPD discrimination and Trail Making Test performance remained significant even after accounting for the participants' age and degree of hearing loss.
03Ability to discriminate interaural level differences (ILD) also correlated with Trail Making Test Part A performance, suggesting a shared non-auditory processing component across different spatial hearing tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (20 participants), which limits the generalizability of the findings. The participants all had similar audiometric profiles (moderate low-frequency loss), so results may not apply to those with normal hearing or different loss configurations. Significant practice effects were observed, meaning that repeated testing improved performance. This complicates the interpretation of single-session assessments. The study used a custom touchscreen version of the Trail Making Test, which may not be directly comparable to standard paper-and-pencil norms. One participant had a MoCA score suggesting possible mild cognitive impairment but was included in the analysis.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by non-U.S. government funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret poor IPD discrimination scores in older adults as definitive evidence of cochlear or neural auditory damage. The study shows these scores correlate strongly with cognitive processing speed, so a poor result may reflect general cognitive slowing rather than a specific auditory deficit.