Spectral-Temporal Trade-Off in Vocoded Sentence Recognition: Effects of Age, Hearing Thresholds, and Working Memory.
Maureen J Shader, Calli M Yancey, Sandra Gordon-Salant and 1 others
PMID 32032222WHAT IT FOUND
Older near-normal-hearing adults recognized vocoded sentences worse than younger adults only in the most degraded 4- and 6-channel conditions.
Hearing thresholds predicted performance, not working memory. This is not direct evidence for cochlear implant users.
Key findings
01Older near-normal-hearing listeners scored lower than younger listeners overall, but the group difference was significant only in the 4- and 6-channel conditions.
02Older and younger listeners did not differ significantly in how sentence recognition changed with envelope modulation rate.
03Hearing thresholds at 1, 2, and 4 kHz were the predictors identified for sentence recognition, while working memory did not contribute significantly.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The older group had slightly higher hearing thresholds than the younger group, and the authors say this difference could confound the results. The study tested people with normal or near-normal hearing, not cochlear implant users, so it does not directly show how older CI users perform. Only working memory was measured, so other cognitive changes such as inhibition or processing speed were not tested. The temporal degradation tested was only envelope modulation rate, so other temporal problems such as temporal jitter or time compression were not ruled out. Sentence recognition in quiet includes context, which may have hidden temporal processing deficits that appear in less supportive listening conditions.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that older cochlear implant users cannot use faster envelope modulations. The study tested near-normal-hearing listeners, found no age by envelope modulation rate interaction, and showed older adults were worse only in the most degraded conditions.