Cautiousness and hearing acuity in elderly women: a signal detection approach

Hearing loss in elderly women was investigated with respect to measures of sensory and decision processes in an auditory signal detection task. A 1000Hz signal was used as the stimulus and a 6-point response category scale was employed. Subject biases were obtained from 6 normal hearing and 6 moderately hearing impaired elderly adults (65-76 yr). Results indicated that the subjects set a conservative criterion, regardless of hearing loss, and tended to use a binary decision process.