Hearing analysis reveals differences in perception of speech-like noises among younger versus older people. A new study suggests that people in different age groups use two distinctive techniques to filter out noise and focus on auditory signals resembling human speech. When younger people listen to these sounds, their brains naturally synchronize to the rhythm, and this synchronization is harnessed by a second brain process that filters out irrelevant information. When older subjects listen to the same speech-like noises, they were less able to automatically sync their brains to the rhythms, which led to a struggle to filter out irrelevant information. These findings suggest that, in addition to the loss of ability to distinguish certain pitches with age, we actually change the way we filter extraneous noises —which is helpful in finding more effective ways to address age-related hearing difficulties.
Authors:
Molly J. Henry, Björn Herrmann, Dunja Kunke & Jonas Obleser
Corresponding author:
Molly Henry, Western University, London, ON, Email: mhenry55@uwo.ca
Original paper published in Nature Communications on June 27, 2017.
