Individual differences in the perception of temporal order: the effect of age and cognition.

Publisher: Routledge Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 8411889 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1464-0627 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 02643294 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Cogn Neuropsychol Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 2013- : London : Routledge
Original Publication: London ; Hillsdale, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, c1984-

Auditory Perception* ; Auditory Threshold* ; Cognition* ; Functional Laterality* ; Individuality*; Aging/*psychology; Acoustic Stimulation/methods ; Adult ; Age Factors ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neuropsychological Tests ; Time Perception

Temporal-order judgements in the time range of some milliseconds were assessed by using two auditory tasks in 86 participants, aged from 20 to 69 years. Two stimulus presentation modes, binaural versus monaural, were compared. Elderly participants performed worse than the younger participants; however, different patterns of age-related declines were observed, depending on the presentation mode. In the monaural mode considerable deterioration was observed beyond 60 years of age, whereas in the binaural mode declines were found much earlier, from 40 years of age. Performance of the monaural task correlated with cognitive competences and provided important insight into neuronal timing mechanisms. In contrast, the binaural mode reflected a bias towards an integrated perception of sequential stimuli and was less related to cognitive resources. These findings provide evidence that age-related declines in human sequencing abilities involve, besides temporal mechanisms, also a mode-specific processing, presumably associated with different neuronal mechanisms.

Date Created: 20081107 Date Completed: 20090819 Latest Revision: 20090525

20240104

10.1080/02643290802504742

18988063