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Updated: Jul 11, 2026
06:34
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Auditory temporal order perception in younger and older adults
P J Fitzgibbons1, S Gordon-Salant
1Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR
|October 15, 1998
Summary
Older adults struggle more with auditory temporal order processing, especially complex sound patterns. However, discriminating sound order is easier than identifying it for all age groups.
Area of Science:
- Auditory perception
- Psychoacoustics
- Human auditory processing
Background:
- Temporal processing is crucial for understanding speech and music.
- Age-related changes can affect auditory abilities, including temporal resolution.
- The impact of aging on auditory temporal order perception requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the temporal order discrimination and identification abilities of younger and older adults.
- To investigate the influence of stimulus complexity and presentation rate on these abilities.
- To examine the role of mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss in temporal order processing.
Main Methods:
- Participants included young and older adults with normal or impaired hearing.
- Stimuli consisted of three-tone sequences at 4000 Hz.
- Tasks involved discriminating between sequences and identifying tone order using pitch labels.
Main Results:
- Older adults performed worse on complex pitch pattern discrimination and fast-rate identification tasks.
- Order discrimination was consistently easier than order identification across all participants.
- Hearing loss had minimal impact on temporal ordering tasks.
Conclusions:
- Aging negatively impacts auditory temporal order processing, particularly for complex stimuli and rapid presentation.
- The distinction between auditory order discrimination and identification is robust across age groups.
- Mild-to-moderate hearing loss does not significantly impair auditory temporal order perception.
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