"Could you repeat that?" The reason you may have to say something twice when talking to older family members at Thanksgiving dinner may not be because of their hearing. Researchers at the University of Maryland have determined that something is going on in the brains of typical older adults that causes them to struggle to follow speech amidst background noise, even when their hearing would be considered normal on a clinical assessment.
In an interdisciplinary study published by the Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers Samira Anderson, Jonathan Z. Simon, and Alessandro Presacco found that adults aged 61-73 with normal hearing scored significantly worse on speech understanding in noisy environments than adults aged 18-30 with normal hearing. The researchers are all associated with the UMD's Brain and Behavior Initiative.
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Why is this the case? "Part of the comprehension problems experienced by older adults in both quiet and noise conditions could be linked to age-related imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory neural processes in the brain," Presacco said. "This imbalance could impair the brain's ability to correctly process auditory stimuli and could be the main cause of the abnormally high cortical response observed in our study."
In short, they think signal processing is to blame, not signal transmission.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Kilo110 on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:46AM
My sibling and I have this issue as well. I was aware of this even in high school. Like you, I can hear very quiet sounds easily, but I'm unable to separate out relevant sounds (voices) from background noises. My mother has the same issue, so I believe it came from her side.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:53AM
I know a lot of people like this, and they all without fail always immediately hear and understand the words, "next up for a line of coke!" regardless of their so-called "signal processing difficulties."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:32PM
What is this line? And do other soft drinks come with this new form of packaging?
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:27PM
They all work in CocaCola factories. Another line of coke clearly means overtime!
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Thursday October 20 2016, @08:29PM
Same here, I know my hearing is excellent because I've taken several (work mandated) hearing tests and my scores are among the highest, but I don't hear voices in noisy environments until I KNOW someone is speaking to me, and even then I often have problems understanding and need to ask for a repeat several times.