Effects of Cognitive Load on Pure-Tone Audiometry Thresholds in Younger and Older Adults.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Cognitive load (CL) impairs listeners' ability to comprehend sentences, recognize words, and identify speech sounds. Recent findings suggest that this effect originates in a disruption of low-level perception of acoustic details. Here, we attempted to quantify such a disruption by measuring the effect of CL (a two-back task) on pure-tone audiometry (PTA) thresholds. We also asked whether the effect of CL on PTA was greater in older adults, on account of their reduced ability to divide cognitive resources between simultaneous tasks. To specify the mechanisms and representations underlying the interface between auditory and cognitive processes, we contrasted CL requiring visual encoding with CL requiring auditory encoding. Finally, the link between the cost of performing P

SUBMITTER: Heinrich A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7676481 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul/Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature