# AUDITORY TEMPORAL PROCESSES, SPEECH PERCEPTION AND AGING

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK · 1992 · $149,268

## Abstract

The project proposes a program of studies in speech perception and auditory
psychophysics to examine the hypothesis that many of the difficulties in
speech understanding among elderly listeners can be attributed to
underlying problems in auditory temporal processing.  Research indicates
that elderly listeners have particular difficulty understanding speech that
is degraded by the presence of background noise, or by various forms of
temporal waveform distortion (e.g., time compression, interruption,
reverberation).  The listeners' problems may be related to the effects of
presbycusic hearing loss, as well as diminished processing capacity within
central stages of the auditory system.  The project investigates the
problem with experiments that examine the relative contributions of age-
related changes in peripheral hearing sensitivity, central auditory
function, and selected cognitive abilities using speech and non-speech
stimuli.  The project comprises four stages of investigation, each
consisting of a series of speech recognition experiments and psychoacoustic
discrimination tasks.  Stage 1.  (mos. 1-16) examines relations between
speech recognition with four types of temporally-altered speech and several
psychoacoustic measures of temporal sensitivity derived with simple tonal
stimuli; Stage 2.  (mos 13-36) examines the influence of auditory central
processing factors by varying the complexity of stimuli used in both the
speech and psychoacoustic tasks; Stage 3.  (mos. 32-48) evaluates the
effects of task demands and selected cognitive factors on listeners' serial
recall of speech sentences and non-speech sequential patterns; Stage 4.
(mos. 49-60) applies discriminant analysis statistical techniques to
formulate profiles of temporal processing abilities of young and elderly
listeners.  For each stage of the investigation, the independent effects of
age and hearing loss on listener performance are evaluated by testing young
and elderly subjects with normal hearing and matched degrees of
sensorineural hearing loss.  Subjects participating in the project will
also be examined on educational and language background, physical and
mental health, and otologic history.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3120954
- **Project number:** 5R01AG009191-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK
- **SAM.gov UEI:** NPU8ULVAAS23
- **Principal Investigator:** Sandra M Gordon-Salant
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1992
- **Award amount:** $149,268
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1991-03-15 → 1996-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3120954

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3120954, AUDITORY TEMPORAL PROCESSES, SPEECH PERCEPTION AND AGING (5R01AG009191-02). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3120954. Licensed CC0.

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