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Effect of Age on F₀ Difference Limen and Concurrent Vowel Identification

Contact author: Margaret Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road North, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada. E-mail: k.pichora.fuller{at}utoronto.ca.

Purpose: To investigate the effect of age on voice fundamental frequency (F₀) difference limen (DL) and identification of concurrently presented vowels.

Method: Fifteen younger and 15 older adults with normal audiometric thresholds in the speech range participated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, F₀ DLs were measured for a synthesized vowel. In Experiment 2, accuracy in identifying concurrently presented vowel pairs was measured. Vowel pairs were formed from 5 synthesized vowels with F₀ separations ranging from 0 to 4 semitones.

Results: Younger adults had smaller (better) F₀ DLs than older adults. For the older group, age was significantly correlated with F₀ DLs. Younger adults identified concurrent vowels more accurately than older adults. When the vowels in the pairs had different formants, both age groups benefited similarly from F₀ separation. Interestingly, when both constituent vowels had identical formants, F₀ separation was deleterious, especially for older adults. Pure-tone average threshold did not correlate significantly with either F₀ DL or accuracy in concurrent vowel identification.

Conclusion: Age-related declines were confirmed for F₀ DLs, identification of concurrently spoken vowels, and benefit from F₀ separation between vowels with identical formants. This pattern of findings is consistent with age-related deficits in periodicity coding.

KEY WORDS: aging, frequency difference limen, concurrent vowels, temporal processing, periodicity coding

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