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. 2005 Sep;6(3):207-22.
doi: 10.1007/s10162-005-5029-6.

Effects of age, age-related hearing loss, and contralateral cafeteria noise on the discrimination of small frequency changes: psychoacoustic and electrophysiological measures

Sibylle Bertoli  1 , Jacek Smurzynski, Rudolf Probst
Affiliations

Effects of age, age-related hearing loss, and contralateral cafeteria noise on the discrimination of small frequency changes: psychoacoustic and electrophysiological measures

Sibylle Bertoli et al. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2005 Sep.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine central auditory processes compromised by age, age-related hearing loss, and the presentation of a distracting cafeteria noise using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). In addition, the relation of ERPs to behavioral measures of discrimination was investigated. Three groups of subjects participated: young normal hearing, elderly subjects with normal hearing for their age, and elderly hearing-impaired subjects. Psychoacoustic frequency discrimination thresholds for a 1000-Hz pure tone were determined in quiet and in the presence of a contralateral cafeteria noise. To elicit ERPs, small frequency contrasts were presented with and without noise under unattended and attended conditions. In the attended condition, behavioral measures of d' detectability and reaction times were also obtained. Noise affected all measures of behavioral frequency discrimination significantly. Except N1, all ERP components in the standard and difference waveforms decreased significantly in amplitude and increased in latency to the same degree in all three subject groups, arguing against a specific age-related sensitivity to the effects of contralateral background noise. For N1 amplitude, the effect of noise was different in the three subject groups, with a complex interaction of age, hearing loss, and attention. Behavioral frequency discrimination was not affected by age but deteriorated significantly in the elderly subjects with hearing loss. In the electrophysiological test, age-related changes occurred at various levels. The most prominent finding in the response to the standard stimuli was a sustained negativity (N2) following P2 in the young subjects that was absent in the elderly, possibly indicating a deficit in the inhibition of irrelevant information processing. In the attended difference waveform, significantly larger N2b and smaller P3b amplitudes and longer N2b and P3b latencies were observed in the elderly indicating different processing strategies. The pronounced age-related changes in the later cognitive components suggest that the discrimination of difficult contrasts, although behaviorally maintained, becomes more effortful in the elderly.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean pure-tone audiograms (±1 SD) for the young normal-hearing (YNH), elderly normal-hearing (ENH), and elderly hearing-impaired (EHI) subject groups.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Mean frequency discrimination thresholds (±1 SD) of the three subject groups for the quiet and noise conditions.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Mean d′ detectability indexes (±1 SD; upper panel) and reaction times (±1 SD; lower panel) for the 1016-, 1032-, and 1064-Hz targets in quiet and in noise obtained from the attended conditions of the electrophysiological testing for the three subject groups.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Grand mean standard waveforms of the three subject groups (YNH, ENH, EHI) from the unattended quiet condition at all eight electrode sites.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Grand mean standard waveforms of the young normal-hearing (YNH), elderly normal-hearing (ENH), and elderly hearing-impaired (EHI) subjects from the four test conditions (unattended quiet, unattended noise, attended quiet, and attended noise) recorded at electrode site Cz.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Grand mean standard waveforms of the three subject groups (YNH, ENH, EHI) and two attention conditions (unattended, attended) as a function of the noise condition (quiet, contralateral cafeteria noise) recorded at electrode site Cz.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Grand mean difference waveforms of the unattended quiet condition in response to the 1016-, 1032-, and 1064-Hz deviants at electrode sites Fz and LM for the three subject groups (YNH, ENH, EHI).
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Grand mean difference waveforms of the unattended condition for the three stimulus deviants and the three subject groups as a function of the noise condition (quiet, contralateral cafeteria noise) at electrode site Fz.
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Grand mean difference waveforms of the attended condition in response to the 1064-Hz target at all eight electrode sites for the three subject groups (YNH, ENH, EHI).
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
Grand mean difference waveforms of the attended condition in response to the 1016-, 1032-, and 1064-Hz targets at electrode site Cz for the three subject groups (YNH, ENH, EHI).
Fig. 11
Fig. 11
Grand mean difference waveforms of the attended condition for the three stimulus targets and the three subject groups as a function of the noise condition (quiet, contralateral cafeteria noise) at electrode site Cz.
Fig. 12
Fig. 12
Grand mean responses to the standard and the three deviant stimuli of the unattended condition at electrode site Fz for the three subject groups.
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