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。 声音中的信息在听觉系统中被编码并被大脑解释。听力的一个方面是 时间处理在空间听觉中起重要作用。良好的双耳听力赋予的优势， 作为掩蔽的空间释放，这有利于分离目标的掩蔽语音可懂度 和掩蔽语音源。年长的听众--即使是那些听力“接近正常”的人--往往会有 损害了双耳时间处理，并表现出较少的双耳优势。决定因素， 这是理解老年听众沟通能力限制的关键， 在我们日常环境的空间和声学复杂声景中发挥作用。的目的 该项目旨在获得一个广泛的成人空间听觉能力的综合特征。 年龄范围，特别强调区分年龄和听力损失的影响。这将具有 特别是与理解老年听众的听力困难，否则“接近正常” 听证会具体目标集中在双耳时间处理和空间化语音识别， 特别是在动态条件下。该方法独特地结合了行为和电生理学 措施，并纳入了听众的认知概况。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性 可供听众使用。这些结果将直接关系到解决公共卫生挑战， 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.