Age-related asymmetry on a cued-listening task

We report results on a cued-listening task designed to simulate the listening problems commonly described by individuals with sensorineural hearing loss, especially those experienced by elderly persons. Against a background of multitalker babble, the subject detected targets embedded in continuous discourse. Noncoherent segments of this discourse were presented simultaneously from loudspeakers on the right and left sides. A signal light cued the side to be monitored during a listening trial. The overall difficulty of the task was manipulated by variation of the message to competition intensity ratio. A sequence of listening trials, half-cued to the right side, half cued to the left side, was executed at each of four message to competition intensity ratios. Nineteen young adults with normal hearing and 28 elderly persons with presbyacusic hearing loss were evaluated. All subjects, young and elderly, were able to complete the cued-listening task successfully. Results showed a small but significant right-side advantage in the young group and a substantial right-side advantage in the elderly group. The application of the testing technique to the evaluation of hearing aid performance is illustrated in two elderly persons.