Everyday Sound Perception and Aging

Abstract

Age related hearing loss is extensively documented in both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies but there are no direct studies of the ability of older persons to perceive everyday sounds. There is evidence suggesting some impairment. Vanderveer (1979) observed that older listeners had difficulty interpreting environmental sounds but did not report any performance data. Demands imposed by the stimulus properties of this type of sound and by the perceptual and cognitive processes found to mediate perception of this sound in college-aged listeners may present difficulty for older listeners. Forty-seven members of a retired organization were given a subset of sounds that had been used in previous identification studies. Identification data for the same set of sounds had been previously obtained from high school and college students (Ballas, Dick, & Groshek, 1987). The ability of the aged group to identify this set of sounds was not significantly different from the ability of a student group. In fact, uncertainties were closely matched except for a few sounds. Directions for future research are discussed.

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