Binaural Processing and Spatial Hearing: Effects of Age and Hearing Loss

在某种程度上，理解声音的能力依赖于时间信息的保真度 在这其中，声音在听觉系统中被编码，并由大脑解释。听证的一个方面是 时间加工起着重要作用的是空间听觉。好的双耳听力具有以下优势 由于空间上从掩蔽中释放出来，这有利于分离目标的掩蔽语音清晰度 以及太空中的蒙面语音源。年长的听众--即使是那些听力接近正常的人--往往有 影响了双耳的时间处理，并表现出较少的双耳优势。确定以下因素 这是理解年长听众沟通和交流能力的限制的关键 在我们日常环境的空间和声学复杂的音景中发挥作用。目的 该项目旨在全面描述成年人的空间听觉能力。 年龄范围，特别强调区分年龄和听力损失的影响。这将会有 与理解老年听者听力困难的相关性特别大，否则听力接近正常 听证。具体目标集中在双耳时间处理和语音中语音识别的空间化， 特别是在动态条件下。这种方法独特地结合了行为学和电生理学 测量，也结合了听者的认知特征。这些发现将促进我们对 空间听力的好处，以及这些好处对时间信息保真度的依赖 对听众可用。这些结果将与应对以下公共卫生挑战直接相关 迅速增长的老年人口所经历的沟通困难。

The ability to make sense of sound relies, in some measure, on the fidelity with which the temporal information within that sound is encoded in the auditory system and interpreted by the brain. One facet of hearing where temporal processing plays an important role is spatial hearing. Good binaural hearing confers advantages such as spatial release from masking, which is the benefit to masked speech intelligibility of separating the target and masker speech sources in space. Older listeners – even those with ‘near-normal’ hearing – tend to have compromised binaural temporal processing and exhibit less binaural advantage. Determining the factors that underlie this is key to understanding the constraints on the abilities of older listeners to communicate and function in the spatially and acoustically complex soundscape of our every-day environment. The purpose of this project is to obtain a comprehensive characterization of the spatial hearing abilities of adults across a wide age range, with a particular emphasis on differentiating effects of age and hearing loss. This will have particular relevance to understanding the hearing difficulties of older listeners with otherwise ‘near-normal’ hearing. Specific Aims focus on binaural temporal processing and spatialized speech-in-speech recognition, particularly under dynamic conditions. The approach uniquely combines behavioral and electrophysiological measures, and also incorporates the listener’s cognitive profile. The findings will advance our understanding of the benefits of spatial hearing, and the dependence of these benefits on the fidelity of temporal information available to the listener. These outcomes will be directly relevant to the public health challenge of addressing the communication difficulties experienced by the burgeoning older population.