Letter to the Editor: Possible Sex Effects on the Processing of Temporal Cues in Word Segments in Adult Cochlear-Implant Users

摘要

We recently published an article in Trends in Hearing on “Age-Related Temporal Processing Deficits in Word Segments in Adult Cochlear-Implant Users” (Xie et al., 2019). In Experiments 1 and 2 of this article, younger, middle-aged, and older adult cochlear-implant (CI) users performed a word categorization task for a dish–ditch continuum (i.e., identifying each token along the continuum as being either “dish” or “ditch”) across presentation levels of 25 to 85 dB SPL. This continuum consisted of seven steps in which the silence duration cue preceding the final fricative (signaling the word contrast) varied from 0 ms (dish) to 60 ms (ditch). Results revealed that older CI users, compared with younger CI users, exhibited later crossover points and shallower slopes in the categorization function but only at higher presentation levels. We interpreted these findings as suggesting agerelated declines in the ability to use brief temporal cues in word identification in CI users. The level dependency of the age effects may reflect the limits of CIs to transmit speech cues, auditory temporal processing deficits associated with aging, or their interaction.