Spontaneous head-movements improve sound localization in aging adults with hearing loss.

ABSTRACT: Moving the head while a sound is playing improves its localization in human listeners, in children and adults, with or without hearing problems. It remains to be ascertained if this benefit can also extend to aging adults with hearing-loss, a population in which spatial hearing difficulties are often documented and intervention solutions are scant. Here we examined performance of elderly adults (61-82 years old) with symmetrical or asymmetrical age-related hearing-loss, while they localized sounds with their head fixed or free to move. Using motion-tracking in combination with free-field sound delivery in visual virtual reality, we tested participants in two auditory spatial tasks: front-back discrimination and 3D sound localization in front space. Front-back discrimination was easier for

SUBMITTER: Gessa E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9609159 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature