Effects of age, stimulus degradation, and sentence context on auditory temporal processing.

Abstract

This study examined how age, stimulus degradation, and sentence context affect sensitivity to speech temporal cues. Adults aged 20-72 with self-reported normal hearing completed a phonemic categorization task using unprocessed and 8-channel vocoded (simulating stimulus degradation in cochlear implants) versions of a dent/tent contrast with varying voice-onset times. Target words were embedded in sentences biased toward "dent" or "tent," or presented in a neutral context. Advancing age reduced voice-onset time sensitivity regardless of sentence context, although this effect was less pronounced for vocoded stimuli. These results suggest that age-related temporal processing deficits may be unaffected by top-down linguistic influences.