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Free-field study on auditory localization and discrimination performance in older adults

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Abstract

Localization accuracy and acuity for low- (0.375–0.75 kHz; LN) and high-frequency (2.25–4.5 kHz; HN) noise bands were examined in young (20–29 years) and older adults (65–83 years) in the acoustic free-field. A pointing task was applied to quantify accuracy, while acuity was inferred from minimum audible angle (MAA) thresholds measured with an adaptive 3-alternative forced-choice procedure. Accuracy decreased with laterality and age. From young to older adults, the accuracy declined by up to 23 % for the low-frequency noise band across all lateralities. The mean age effect was even more pronounced on MAA thresholds. Thus, age was a strong predictor for MAA thresholds for both LN and HN bands. There was no significant correlation between hearing status and localization performance. These results suggest that central auditory processing of space declines with age and is mainly driven by age-related changes in the processing of binaural cues (interaural time difference and interaural intensity difference) and not directly induced by peripheral hearing loss. We conclude that the representation of the location of sound sources becomes blurred with age as a consequence of declined temporal processing, the effect of which becomes particularly evident for MAA thresholds, where two closely adjoining sound sources have to be separated. While localization accuracy and MAA were not correlated in older adults, only a weak correlation was found in young adults. These results point to an employment of different processing strategies for localization accuracy and acuity.

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Abbreviations

3AFC:

Three-interval, three-alternative forced-choice

ASW:

Auditory source width

IC:

Interaural coherence

ITD:

Interaural time difference

ILD:

Interaural intensity difference

MAA:

Minimum audible angle

MEG:

Magnetoencephalography

rm-ANOVA:

Repeated measures analysis of variance

RMSE:

Root-mean-square error

SE:

Signed error

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ingo Kannetzky, Matthias Freier, Jörg Eckebrecht, Nicole Richter, and Joachim Dörrscheidt for their help in planning and setting up the free-field setup and implementing the experimental software. We also thank Marissa Malkowski and Geoffrey Davey for proof-reading earlier versions of the manuscript. Further, the authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We gratefully acknowledge the funding of this work by the International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity (IMPRS NeuroCom) and the Erasmus Mundus Student Exchange Network in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience (ACN).

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No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the author(s).

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  1. Claudia Freigang

    Present address: Audio Information Processing, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universität München, Arcisstrasse 21, 80333, Munich, Germany

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  1. Faculty of Biosciences, Pharmacy and Psychology, University of Leipzig, Talstrasse 33, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Claudia Freigang, Kristina Schmiedchen, Ines Nitsche & Rudolf Rübsamen

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  1. Claudia Freigang
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Freigang, C., Schmiedchen, K., Nitsche, I. et al. Free-field study on auditory localization and discrimination performance in older adults. Exp Brain Res 232, 1157–1172 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3825-0

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