Dichotic listening to speech: VA-CD data from elderly subjects

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Neuroscience
• Gerontology

Background:

• The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) compact disc (VA-CD) Tonal and Speech Materials for Auditory Perceptual Assessment offers three dichotic speech tests.
• Dichotic digits and synthetic sentences are generally easy for young, normal-hearing listeners, while dichotic nonsense syllables present a greater challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the performance of elderly patients with hearing loss on the VA-CD dichotic speech tests.
• To compare the performance of older adults with hearing loss to young, normal-hearing listeners on these auditory tasks.

Main Methods:

• Nineteen elderly patients with hearing loss in a VA long-term care facility participated.
• Dichotic digits, sentences, and nonsense syllables were presented at 80 dB SPL.
• Nonsense syllable tests were also conducted at 90 dB SPL to assess the impact of hearing loss.

Main Results:

• Recognition accuracy was highest for digits, followed by sentences, and then syllables, consistent across both ears.
• Older participants showed the most significant reduction in performance on the syllable task compared to young listeners.
• Performance on dichotic sentences was also notably reduced in the elderly group.

Conclusions:

• Aging auditory systems process dichotic nonsense syllables less effectively than younger systems.
• The VA-CD dichotic speech tests provide a valuable range of difficulty for auditory assessment in clinical and research settings.
• These findings highlight age-related changes in auditory processing and the utility of specific tests for evaluating them.