Sequential auditory scene analysis is preserved in normal aging adults.

Normal aging is accompanied by speech perception difficulties, especially in adverse listening situations such as a cocktail party. To assess whether such difficulties might be related to impairments in sequential auditory scene analysis, event-related brain potentials were recorded from normal-hearing young, middle-aged, and older adults during presentation of low (A) tones, high (B) tones, and silences (--) in repeating 3 tone triplets (ABA--). The likelihood of reporting hearing 2 streams increased as a function of the frequency difference between A and B tones (Delta f) to the same extent for all 3 age groups and was paralleled by enhanced sensory-evoked responses over the frontocentral scalp regions. In all 3 age groups, there was also a progressive buildup in brain activity from the beginning to the end of the sequence of triplets, which was characterized by an enhanced positivity that peaked at about 200 ms after the onset of each ABA--triplet. Similar Delta f- and buildup-related activity also occurred over the right temporal cortex, but only for young adults. We conclude that age-related difficulties in separating competing speakers are unlikely to arise from deficits in streaming and might instead reflect less efficient concurrent sound segregation.

[1]  S. Black,et al.  Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging of a Compensatory Prefrontal Network in Alzheimer's Disease , 2003, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[2]  O. Longe,et al.  Auditory evoked potentials to abrupt pitch and timbre change of complex tones: electrophysiological evidence of 'streaming'? , 1998, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[3]  Rhodri Cusack,et al.  The Intraparietal Sulcus and Perceptual Organization , 2005, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[4]  Identification of speeded and slowed familiar melodies by younger, middle-aged, and older musicians and nonmusicians. , 1998, Psychology and aging.

[5]  E. N. Sokolov,et al.  Frequency and location specificity of the human vertex N1 wave. , 1988, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[6]  Speech understanding and aging. Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging. Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics, and Biomechanics, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. , 1988, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[7]  D Yves von Cramon,et al.  Inharmonicity detection. Effects of age and contralateral distractor sounds. , 2003, Experimental brain research.

[8]  Denise C. Park,et al.  Handbook of the Psychology of Aging , 1979 .

[9]  J. Rauschecker,et al.  Perceptual Organization of Tone Sequences in the Auditory Cortex of Awake Macaques , 2005, Neuron.

[10]  R. Zatorre,et al.  Structure and function of auditory cortex: music and speech , 2002, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[11]  Albert S. Bregman,et al.  The Auditory Scene. (Book Reviews: Auditory Scene Analysis. The Perceptual Organization of Sound.) , 1990 .

[12]  Blaise Yvert,et al.  Localization of human supratemporal auditory areas from intracerebral auditory evoked potentials using distributed source models , 2005, NeuroImage.

[13]  L Collet,et al.  Perceptual auditory stream segregation of sequences of complex sounds in subjects with normal and impaired hearing , 2001, British journal of audiology.

[14]  C L Mackersie,et al.  The role of sequential stream segregation and frequency selectivity in the perception of simultaneous sentences by listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. , 2001, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[15]  M. Scherg,et al.  Neuromagnetic Correlates of Streaming in Human Auditory Cortex , 2005, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[16]  A. Dale,et al.  Thinning of the cerebral cortex in aging. , 2004, Cerebral cortex.

[17]  P Berg,et al.  A multiple source approach to the correction of eye artifacts. , 1994, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[18]  Mitchell Steinschneider,et al.  Neural correlates of auditory stream segregation in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey , 2001, Hearing Research.

[19]  Jessica M. Foxton,et al.  Effects of attention and unilateral neglect on auditory stream segregation. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  Yoshitaka Nakajima,et al.  Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound Albert S. Bregman , 1992 .

[21]  J. Kaas,et al.  Subdivisions of auditory cortex and processing streams in primates. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[22]  Claude Alain,et al.  Effects of Attentional Load on Auditory Scene Analysis , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[23]  M. Lynch,et al.  Effects of aging on processing of novel musical structure. , 1994, Journal of gerontology.

[24]  J. Ford,et al.  Age-related changes in auditory event-related potentials. , 1980, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[25]  S E Trehub,et al.  Aging and auditory temporal sequencing: Ordering the elements of repeating tone patterns , 1989, Perception & psychophysics.

[26]  Terence W. Picton,et al.  Effects of Attention on Neuroelectric Correlates of Auditory Stream Segregation , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[27]  B C Moore,et al.  Perceptual grouping of tone sequences by normally hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. , 1997, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[28]  John G. Neuhoff,et al.  Spatiotemporal Pattern of Neural Processing in the Human Auditory Cortex , 2002, Science.

[29]  R. Butler.  Effect of changes in stimulus frequency and intensity on habituation of the human vertex potential. , 1968, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[30]  Roberto Cabeza,et al.  Aging Gracefully: Compensatory Brain Activity in High-Performing Older Adults , 2002, NeuroImage.

[31]  F. Carp.  Handbook of the psychology of aging. , 1977 .

[32]  R. Knight,et al.  Prefrontal deficits in attention and inhibitory control with aging. , 1997, Cerebral cortex.

[33]  Claude Alain,et al.  Age-related changes in neural activity associated with concurrent vowel segregation. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[34]  Claude Alain,et al.  Aging and the perceptual organisation of sounds: a change of scene? , 2006 .

[35]  P. C. Murphy,et al.  Cerebral Cortex , 2017, Cerebral Cortex.

[36]  Xiaoqin Wang,et al.  Sustained firing in auditory cortex evoked by preferred stimuli , 2005, Nature.

[37]  D. Bosnyak,et al.  Distributed auditory cortical representations are modified when non-musicians are trained at pitch discrimination with 40 Hz amplitude modulated tones. , 2004, Cerebral cortex.

[38]  R. DeTeresa,et al.  Neocortical cell counts in normal human adult aging , 1987, Annals of neurology.

[39]  S A Hillyard,et al.  Effects of aging on event-related brain potentials and reaction times in an auditory oddball task. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[40]  J. Requin.  Attention and Performance VII , 1980 .

[41]  S. Jones,et al.  Scalp potentials to pitch change in rapid tone sequences , 2001, Experimental Brain Research.

[42]  Christophe Micheyl,et al.  Neurodynamics for auditory stream segregation: tracking sounds in the mustached bat's natural environment , 2003, Network.

[43]  James F. Willott,et al.  Aging and the Auditory System: Anatomy, Physiology, and Psychophysics , 1991 .

[44]  M. Scherg,et al.  Two bilateral sources of the late AEP as identified by a spatio-temporal dipole model. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[45]  A S Bregman,et al.  Auditory streaming is cumulative. , 1978, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[46]  Stuart Anstis,et al.  Adaptation to auditory streaming of frequency-modulated tones. , 1985 .

[47]  M Kathleen Pichora-Fuller,et al.  Listening in aging adults: from discourse comprehension to psychoacoustics. , 2002, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[48]  C Alain,et al.  Aging and the segregation of auditory stimulus sequences. , 1996, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[49]  C Alain,et al.  Age-related changes in detecting a mistuned harmonic. , 2001, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[50]  J. Wolpaw,et al.  A temporal component of the auditory evoked response. , 1975, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[51]  L. V. Noorden.  Temporal coherence in the perception of tone sequences , 1975 .

[52]  P. Berg,et al.  The correction of ocular artifacts: a topographic perspective , 2000, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[53]  E. Golob,et al.  Age-related differences in auditory event-related potentials during a cued attention task , 2004, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[54]  J. Eggermont,et al.  Maturation of human central auditory system activity: separating auditory evoked potentials by dipole source modeling , 2002, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[55]  C. Grady,et al.  Dissecting the Effect of Aging on the Neural Substrates of Memory: Deterioration, Preservation or Functional Reorganization? , 2002, Reviews in the neurosciences.

[56]  Georg M Klump,et al.  Primitive auditory stream segregation: a neurophysiological study in the songbird forebrain. , 2004, Journal of neurophysiology.

[57]  Suzanne E. Welcome,et al.  Mapping cortical change across the human life span , 2003, Nature Neuroscience.

[58]  Antoine J. Shahin,et al.  Enhancement of Neuroplastic P2 and N1c Auditory Evoked Potentials in Musicians , 2003, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[59]  L. Humes.  Speech understanding in the elderly. , 1996, Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.

[60]  Brian C. J. Moore,et al.  Auditory streaming based on temporal structure in hearing-impaired listeners , 2004, Hearing Research.

[61]  B C Moore,et al.  The influence of extraneous sounds on the perceptual estimation of first-formant frequency in vowels. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.