Auditory P300 in Noise in Younger and Older Adults

Abstract

Older adults often report difficulty hearing in background noise which is not completely attributable to peripheral hearing loss. Although age-related declines in cognition and hearing in background noise occur, the underlying age-related changes in processing of auditory stimuli in background noise has yet to be fully understood. The auditory P300 has the potential to elucidate the effects of age on auditory and cognitive processing of stimuli in background noise, but additional research is warranted.The purpose of this study was to investigate age-related differences in cognitive processing of auditory stimuli by evoking the auditory P300 at multiple signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).A two-group, repeated measures study design was used.A convenience sample of 35 participants, 15 older adults (mean age of 66.4 yr) and 20 younger adults (mean age of 21.1 yr), participated in the study. All participants had negative otologic and neurological histories.The auditory P300 was evoked using an oddball paradigm with 500 (frequent) and 1000 Hz (target) tonal stimuli in quiet and in the presence of background noise at +20, +10, and 0 SNRs. P300 amplitudes and latencies were measured in each condition for every participant. Repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted for the amplitude and latency measures of the P300 for each group.Results from this study demonstrated P300 latencies were significantly longer in older adults in noise at the most challenging condition (0 SNR) compared with the quiet condition and between the +10 SNR and 0 SNR conditions. Although older adults had significantly longer P300 latencies compared with younger adults, no significant group by listening condition interaction existed. No significant P300 amplitude differences were found for group, noise, or group × listening condition interactions.Results provide evidence that auditory cortical processing, regardless of age, is poorer at more difficult SNRs. However, results also demonstrate that older adults perform significantly poorer than younger adults. This supports the notion that some degree of age-related decline in synchronous firing and rate of transmission of the auditory cortical neurons contributing to the auditory P300 exists. Studies are needed to further understand the impact of noise on auditory cortical processing across populations.

Investigating Influences of Medial Olivocochlear Efferent System on Central Auditory Processing and Listening in Noise: A Behavioral and Event-Related Potential Study

“…ERPs reflect specific sensory and/or cognitive processes [ 30 ]. Specific ERPs that may be used to study the perception of signals in noise are the N1, P2, mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 responses [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Of particular interest to the current study are the MMN and P300 components.…”

The P300 Auditory Evoked Potential: A Physiological Measure of the Engagement of Cognitive Systems Contributing to Listening Effort?

“…The time windows were identical for each listening condition. They were set quite broadly as it was hypothesized that more demanding listening conditions would result in more exerted listening effort, which in turn would lead to prolonged latencies (McCullagh & Shinn 2018). Eighth, once the N1 and P300 simple peaks were detected, their latency and amplitude were measured.…”

“…As hypothesized, an increase in listening demand was related to a statistically significant increase in P300 latency and amplitude (Kok 2001;McCullagh & Shinn 2018). Based on the Ease of Language Understanding model (Rönnberg et al 2013), the used cognitive effort to understand speech is determined by the match between the mental representation of an auditory signal and its storage in the semantic long-term memory.…”

“…Since an increase in listening demand, such as the presence of more interfering background noise, is known to lead to the allocation of more cognitive resources to understand speech (Rönnberg et al 2013), it was hypothesized that listeners will utilize more cognitive resources when actively discriminating speech stimuli in more challenging listening conditions (Kok 2001). As a result, larger P300 amplitudes and prolonged P300 latencies were expected (Picton 2010;McCullagh & Shinn 2018). Furthermore, the relationship between these physiological measures on the one hand, and simultaneously recorded behavioral (i.e., reaction time) and subjective listening effort measures (i.e., self-report) on the other hand was explored.…”

Efeitos do ruído competitivo no desempenho auditivo de indivíduos usuários de AASI

“…Vários estudos já analisaram o efeito do ruído competitivo nas respostas de latência e amplitude dos PEALL GRUSH, 2016;GUSTAFSON et al, 2019;MAGLIERO et al, 1984;MCCULLAGH;SHINN, 2018;PAPESH;BALTZELL, 2015;PARBERY-CLARK et al, 2011;HOWARD;STARR, 1985;SALISBURY et al, 2002;SCHOCHAT et al, 2012;SIMÕES;SOUZA;SCHOCHAT, 2009;RABELO et al, 2015;RAO et al, 2020;UBIALI, 2020;WHITING;STAPELLS, 1998;ZHANG et al, 2018).…”