Duration discrimination in younger and older adults

Authors

  • T.R. Bergeson Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto Ont. L5L 1C6, Canada
  • B.A. Schneider Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto Ont. L5L 1C6, Canada
  • S.J. Hamstra Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto Ont. L5L 1C6, Canada

Keywords:

Audio equipment, Audition, Digital to analog conversion, Frequencies, Probability density function, Speech processing, Speech recognition, Speech transmission, Standards, Duration discrimination, Older adults, Speech sound, Standard tone, Young adults

Abstract

Ten normal hearing young adults and ten older adults were asked to identify the longer of two sequentially presented tones. The duration of the standard tones ranged from 1.5 ms to 1000 ms across blocks. Duration discrimination was not related to audiometric thresholds. These results show that older adults are much more disadvantaged than young adults when discriminating very short durations (i.e., below 40 ms) that are characteristic of speech sounds, and that this disadvantage cannot be accounted for by hearing levels.

Additional Files

Published

2001-12-01

How to Cite

1.
Bergeson T, Schneider B, Hamstra S. Duration discrimination in younger and older adults. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2001 Dec. 1 [cited 2026 May 1];29(4):3-9. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/1410

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 4 (2001)

Section

Technical Articles

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