Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA.
Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2019 Jul;146(1):548. doi: 10.1121/1.5118240.
Declines in spatial release from informational masking may contribute to the speech-processing difficulties that older adults often experience within complex listening environments. The present study sought to answer two fundamental questions: (1) Does spatial release from informational masking decline with age and, if so, (2) does age predict this decline independently of age-typical hearing loss? Younger (18-34 years) and older (60-80 years) adults with age-typical hearing completed a yes/no target-detection task with low-pass filtered noise-vocoded speech designed to reduce non-spatial segregation cues and control for hearing loss. Participants detected a target voice among two-talker masking babble while a virtual spatial separation paradigm [Freyman, Helfer, McCall, and Clifton, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106(6), 3578-3588 (1999)] was used to isolate informational masking release. The younger and older adults both exhibited spatial release from informational masking, but masking release was reduced among the older adults. Furthermore, age predicted this decline controlling for hearing loss, while there was no indication that hearing loss played a role. These findings provide evidence that declines specific to aging limit spatial release from informational masking under challenging listening conditions.
空间信息掩蔽释放的减少可能是导致老年人在复杂聆听环境中出现言语处理困难的原因之一。本研究旨在回答两个基本问题：（1）信息掩蔽的空间释放是否会随着年龄的增长而减少，如果是，（2）年龄是否可以独立于年龄相关的听力损失来预测这种减少？具有年龄典型听力的年轻（18-34 岁）和老年（60-80 岁）成年人完成了一项带有低通滤波噪声语音的是/否目标检测任务，旨在减少非空间分离线索并控制听力损失。参与者在双说话者掩蔽噪声中检测目标语音，同时使用虚拟空间分离范式 [Freyman、Helfer、McCall 和 Clifton，J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106(6), 3578-3588 (1999)] 来分离信息掩蔽释放。年轻和老年成年人都表现出信息掩蔽的空间释放，但老年成年人的掩蔽释放减少。此外，年龄可以预测这种减少，而无需考虑听力损失，而没有迹象表明听力损失起了作用。这些发现提供了证据，表明特定于衰老的衰退限制了在具有挑战性的聆听条件下的信息掩蔽的空间释放。
