Richard H Wilson1, Staci E Irish1. 1. a VA Medical Center, Mountain Home, Tennessee and East Tennessee State University , Johnson City , USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine in an interrupted word paradigm (Maryland CNCs; 10 ips, 50% duty cycle) if different locations of the interruption pattern produce different recognition performances. DESIGN: Repeated measures using two interruption patterns that were complementary halves referenced to word onset; one started with word onset (0-ms), the other started 50 ms later. The hypothesis was that recognition performance would be better on the 0-ms condition than on the 50-ms condition, but there would be some words with the reverse relation. STUDY SAMPLE: Twenty-four young adults with normal hearing for pure tones and 32 older adults (mean = 67 years) with sensorineural hearing loss participated. RESULTS: With the young listeners mean recognition performance on the 0-ms condition (63.1%) was significantly better than the mean performance on the 50-ms condition (47.8%). About twice as many words had better performance on the 0-ms condition. With the older listeners, who were given only stimuli on which performances were > 58% by the young normals, performances on the two conditions were the same. CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis was supported with the young listeners. The equal performance by the older listeners on the two conditions was attributed to the manner in which the words were selected.
OBJECTIVE: To determine in an interrupted word paradigm (Maryland CNCs; 10 ips, 50% duty cycle) if different locations of the interruption pattern produce different recognition performances. DESIGN: Repeated measures using two interruption patterns that were complementary halves referenced to word onset; one started with word onset (0-ms), the other started 50 ms later. The hypothesis was that recognition performance would be better on the 0-ms condition than on the 50-ms condition, but there would be some words with the reverse relation. STUDY SAMPLE: Twenty-four young adults with normal hearing for pure tones and 32 older adults (mean = 67 years) with sensorineural hearing loss participated. RESULTS: With the young listeners mean recognition performance on the 0-ms condition (63.1%) was significantly better than the mean performance on the 50-ms condition (47.8%). About twice as many words had better performance on the 0-ms condition. With the older listeners, who were given only stimuli on which performances were > 58% by the young normals, performances on the two conditions were the same. CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis was supported with the young listeners. The equal performance by the older listeners on the two conditions was attributed to the manner in which the words were selected.