Temporal acuity in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss.

Temporal acuity, the minimum time interval within which the auditory system can discriminate the order of auditory events, was measured for three listeners with normal hearing and for 10 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Eight of the 10 listeners with sensorineural loss showed better temporal acuity for conditions with greater loss. The remaining two listeners showed the opposite effect. The temporal acuity results are not well correlated with either speech discrimination scores or measures of recruitment. The temporal acuity results do appear to be correlated with results observed in studies of temporal integration or brief-tone audiometry. Listeners with sensorineural loss tend to have both poor temporal integration and good temporal acuity. This suggests that the two temporal measures may reflect a single time constant in the auditory system.