THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURES OF TEM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The overall aim of this project is to examine the relationship between psychophysical and electrophysiological (i.e., cortical) measures of temporal gap detection in young adults with normal hearing; in children and elderly adults with normal hearing; and in individuals with known CNS lesions and auditory-based learning disorders. Rapid temporal processing is critically important in perception of speech and music, as well as in sound localization. Previous research has demonstrated that psychophysical gap thresholds in infants and elderly adults are poorer than in young adults, and that electrophysiological gap detection measures may show age-specific differences not illuminated with psychophysical tasks. Furthermore, it has been suggested that gap thresholds obtained using broadband stimuli reflects only neural activity of high frequency fibers. It has been demonstrated both psychophysically and electrophysiologically that gap thresholds are frequency-dependent when using frequency-specific stimuli. Taken together, the neural patterns for temporal gap detection abilities may differ across the lifespan and that frequency-specific measures of temporal processing may illuminate frequency-specific auditory processing disorders. This study is proposed to bring together these converging lines of research to examine the relationship between psychophysical and electrophysiological measures of temporal auditory processing.