Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This study examined how age, stimulus degradation, and sentence context affect sensitivity to speech temporal cues. Adults aged 20-72 with self-reported normal hearing completed a phonemic categorization task using unprocessed and 8-channel vocoded (simulating stimulus degradation in cochlear implants) versions of a dent/tent contrast with varying voice-onset times. Target words were embedded in sentences biased toward "dent" or "tent," or presented in a neutral context. Advancing age reduced voice-onset time sensitivity regardless of sentence context, although this effect was less pronounced for vocoded stimuli. These results suggest that age-related temporal processing deficits may be unaffected by top-down linguistic influences.
Source: JASA Express Letters
DOI: 10.1121/10.0036250
Authors: Zilong Xie, Madeline Johnson
Institution: Florida State University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Florida State University
OpenAlex ID: W4408662430