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Related Concept Videos

Hearing

Hearing

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

Auditory Pathway

Auditory Pathway

Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking...

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...

Perception of Sound Waves

Perception of Sound Waves

The human ear is not equally sensitive to all frequencies in the audible range. It may perceive sound waves with the same pressure but different frequencies as having different loudness. Moreover, the perception of sound waves depends on the health of an individual's ears, which decays with age. The health of one's ears may also be affected by regular exposure to loud noises.
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 24, 2025

Semi-Automated Analysis of Peak Amplitude and Latency for Auditory Brainstem Response Waveforms Using R

Semi-Automated Analysis of Peak Amplitude and Latency for Auditory Brainstem Response Waveforms Using R

Published on: December 9, 2022

Aging Impacts Basic Auditory and Timing Processes.

Antonio Criscuolo¹, Michael Schwartze¹, Leonardo Bonetti^2,3,4

¹Department of Neuropsychology & Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.

The European Journal of Neuroscience

|March 3, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Aging affects auditory processing, leading to difficulties in speech comprehension. Older adults show altered neural responses and reduced phase alignment when processing predictable sound sequences, impacting basic timing abilities.

Keywords:

EEG aging audition oscillations timing

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Last Updated: May 24, 2025

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Uncovering Beat Deafness: Detecting Rhythm Disorders with Synchronized Finger Tapping and Perceptual Timing Tasks

Published on: March 16, 2015

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Auditory Neuroscience
Cognitive Aging

Background:

Age-related hearing and speech comprehension difficulties are common.
Electrophysiological data in older adults show altered neural responses and phase alignment variability along the auditory pathway.
It is unclear if aging-related speech processing challenges stem from fundamental auditory and timing deficits.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how aging individuals encode temporal regularities in isochronous auditory sequences.
To examine adaptive neural phase alignment mechanisms in anticipation of sound onsets in aging.
To determine if basic auditory and timing processes are impaired in older adults.

Main Methods:

Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded in older and young individuals.
Participants listened to simple isochronous tone sequences at 1.5Hz.
Analysis focused on neural responses, 1/F slope, and phase-coherence in delta and theta frequency bands.

Main Results:

Older adults exhibited larger event-related neural responses and an increased 1/F slope.
Reduced phase-coherence at the stimulation frequency (1.5Hz) was observed in aging individuals.
A reduced slope of phase-coherence over time in delta and theta bands suggests altered neural phase alignment mechanisms.

Conclusions:

Aging is associated with altered top-down modulatory inhibition in processing predictable auditory sequences.
Mechanisms of continuous neural phase alignment to expected sound onsets are impaired in aging.
Deficits in basic auditory timing capacities in aging may impact higher-order cognitive functions, necessitating further research across the lifespan.