Aging and the Perception of Speed

J Farley Norman; Heather E Ross; Laura M Hawkes; Jennifer R Long

doi:10.1068/p3478

Aging and the Perception of Speed

Perception ◽

10.1068/p3478 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 85-96 ◽

Cited By ~ 78

Author(s):

J Farley Norman ◽

Heather E Ross ◽

Laura M Hawkes ◽

Jennifer R Long

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Performance ◽

Significant Deterioration ◽

Speed Difference ◽

Moving Stimulus ◽

Difference Thresholds ◽

Effects Of Aging ◽

Moving Patterns

Two experiments were conducted to explore the potential effects of aging upon the perception and discrimination of speed. In the first experiment, speed difference thresholds were obtained for younger and older observers for a variety of standard speeds ranging from slow to fast. The second experiment was designed to evaluate the observers' ability to discriminate differences in the speed of moving patterns in the presence of significant amounts of noise (the noise was manipulated by limiting the lifetimes of individual moving stimulus elements). The results of both experiments revealed a significant deterioration in the ability of the older observers to perceive or detect differences in speed. While the presence of noise was found to affect the observers' discrimination performance, it affected both younger and older observers' thresholds in a proportionally equivalent manner—the older observers were no more affected by noise than the younger observers.

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Psychoacoustic and Demographic Factors for Speech Recognition of Older Adult Cochlear Implant Users

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00225 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (6) ◽

pp. 1712-1725

Author(s):

Xin Luo ◽

Courtney Kolberg ◽

Kathryn R. Pulling ◽

Tamiko Azuma

Keyword(s):

Speech Recognition ◽

Cochlear Implant ◽

Discrimination Performance ◽

Demographic Factors ◽

Small Sample ◽

Gap Detection ◽

Sentence Recognition ◽

Speech Reception Thresholds ◽

Effects Of Aging ◽

Better Than

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the effects of aging and cochlear implant (CI) on psychoacoustic and speech recognition abilities and to assess the relative contributions of psychoacoustic and demographic factors to speech recognition of older CI (OCI) users. Method Twelve OCI users, 12 older acoustic-hearing (OAH) listeners age-matched to OCI users, and 12 younger normal-hearing (YNH) listeners underwent tests of temporal amplitude modulation detection, temporal gap detection in noise, and spectral–temporal modulated ripple discrimination. Speech reception thresholds were measured for sentence recognition in multitalker, speech-babble noise. Results Statistical analyses showed that, for the small sample of OAH listeners, the degree of hearing loss did not significantly affect any outcome measure. Temporal resolution, spectral resolution, and speech recognition all significantly degraded with both age and the use of a CI (i.e., YNH better than OAH and OAH better than OCI performance). Although both were significantly correlated with OCI users' speech recognition, the duration of CI use no longer had a significant effect on speech recognition once the effect of spectral–temporal ripple discrimination performance was taken into account. For OAH listeners, the only significant predictor of speech recognition was temporal gap detection performance. Conclusion The preliminary results suggest that speech recognition of OCI users may improve with longer duration of CI use, mainly due to higher perceptual acuity to spectral–temporal modulated ripples in acoustic stimuli.

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Speed Judgments of Transparent Stimuli

Perception ◽

10.1068/v96l0810 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 107-107

Author(s):

J B Mulligan

Keyword(s):

Test Pattern ◽

Random Noise ◽

Discrimination Performance ◽

Mask Condition ◽

Mask Pattern ◽

Standard Pattern ◽

Band Pass ◽

Speed Discrimination ◽

Moving Patterns ◽

Direction Opposite

When two moving patterns are combined additively, observers often perceive two transparent surfaces, even when there are no cues supporting this segmentation in a frozen snapshot. The ability of observers to make quantitative judgments about the speed of one of the patterns under these conditions was examined. The component patterns consisted of band-pass-filtered random noise presented in a spatial Gaussian contrast envelope, displayed for 250 ms. On each trial a standard pattern appeared on one side of the fixation point, while a test pattern appeared on the other. The test pattern moved in the same direction as the standard, but with a speed which varied from trial to trial according to a staircase procedure. The subjects' task was to report the side of the fixation point on which faster motion was seen. In some conditions the test stimulus was made to appear transparent by adding a mask pattern. When the mask was stationary, or moved slowly with respect to the test, no significant biases were introduced and discrimination performance was comparable to the no-mask condition (typically 3%). But if the mask moved over the test with similar speed, the task became much harder, regardless of whether the mask moved in a direction opposite or orthogonal to the test. (Some subjects commented on a perceived directional repulsion between tests and orthogonally moving masks.) These results suggest the use of nondirectional temporal channels in the performance of the speed discrimination task.

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Effects of aging on axon terminals in the dentate molecular layer

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100128924 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 45 ◽

pp. 928-929

Author(s):

K. Cullen-Dockstader ◽

E. Fifkova

Keyword(s):

Granule Cells ◽

Molecular Layer ◽

Age Groups ◽

Long Term Potentiation ◽

Male Rats ◽

Perforant Path ◽

Axon Terminals ◽

Fischer 344 ◽

Spatial Memory Deficit ◽

Effects Of Aging

Normal aging results in a pronounced spatial memory deficit associated with a rapid decay of long-term potentiation at the synapses between the perforant path and spines in the medial and distal thirds of the dentate molecular layer (DML), suggesting the alteration of synaptic transmission in the dentate fascia. While the number of dentate granule cells remains unchanged, and there are no obvious pathological changes in these cells associated with increasing age, the density of their axospinous contacts has been shown to decrease. There are indications that the presynaptic element is affected by senescence before the postsynaptic element, yet little attention has been given to the fine structure of the remaining axon terminals. Therefore, we studied the axon terminals of the perforant path in the DML across three age groups.5 Male rats (Fischer 344) of each age group (3, 24 and 30 months), were perfused through the aorta.

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Effects of Aging on the Subcortical Encoding of Stop Consonants

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2020_aja-19-00044 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 391-403

Author(s):

Dania Rishiq ◽

Ashley Harkrider ◽

Cary Springer ◽

Mark Hedrick

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Repeated Measures ◽

Mixed Model ◽

Auditory Brainstem ◽

Auditory Brainstem Responses ◽

Aging Effects ◽

Formant Frequency ◽

Place Of Articulation ◽

Second Formant ◽

Effects Of Aging

Purpose The main purpose of this study was to evaluate aging effects on the predominantly subcortical (brainstem) encoding of the second-formant frequency transition, an essential acoustic cue for perceiving place of articulation. Method Synthetic consonant–vowel syllables varying in second-formant onset frequency (i.e., /ba/, /da/, and /ga/ stimuli) were used to elicit speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses (speech-ABRs) in 16 young adults ( M age = 21 years) and 11 older adults ( M age = 59 years). Repeated-measures mixed-model analyses of variance were performed on the latencies and amplitudes of the speech-ABR peaks. Fixed factors were phoneme (repeated measures on three levels: /b/ vs. /d/ vs. /g/) and age (two levels: young vs. older). Results Speech-ABR differences were observed between the two groups (young vs. older adults). Specifically, older listeners showed generalized amplitude reductions for onset and major peaks. Significant Phoneme × Group interactions were not observed. Conclusions Results showed aging effects in speech-ABR amplitudes that may reflect diminished subcortical encoding of consonants in older listeners. These aging effects were not phoneme dependent as observed using the statistical methods of this study.

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