JOURNAL
OF EXPERIMENTAL
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
44,
413-426 (1987)
Age-Related Changes in Auditory Temporal Perception
BARBARA A. MORRONGIELLO
University of Western Ontario
AND
SANDRA E. TREHUB
University of Toronto
The discrimination of signal and silence duration was evaluated in 6-monthold infants, $-year-old children, and adults. Listeners were tested with a conditioned-discrimination
procedure in which they were presented a sequence of
18 white-noise bursts and trained to discriminate a change in duration of the
middle 6 signal or silence elements. There were no differential effects on performance for changes in signal compared to silence duration. At each age, performance varied only as a function of magnitude of duration change. Infants
discriminated duration changes of 20 ms or greater, children discriminated 15
ms, and adults discriminated changes as small as 10 ms. These findings are
consistent with other research in revealing age-related improvements in auditory
temporal perception.
9 1987 Academic
Press. Inc
The processing of temporal information in audition is of fundamental
importance for sound localization,
rhythm perception, speech discrimination, and the detection of signals in noise. Nevertheless, there is relatively
little systematic research examining the developmental course of temporal
information processing. Only three aspects of auditory temporal perception
have been studied developmentally:
(I) auditory fusion, which refers to
the perception of two successive sounds as a single acoustic event; (2)
temporal order perception, in which a listener judges the temporal order
The authors thank Marilyn Barras, Donna1 Laxdal, Greg Patterson, and Patrick Rocca
for help with data collection; K. J. Kim for technical assistance; Rick Robson and Bob
Gardner for statistical advice; Bruce Schneider for use of his research facilities; and Leigh
Thorpe for scholarly contributions. This research was supported by grants from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the University of Toronto.
and was conducted while the first author was an affiliate of the University of Toronto.
Reprints may be obtained from Barbara A. Morrongiello, Department of Psychology,
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2.
413
0022X1965/87 $3 .OO
Copyright
0 1987 by Academic
Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction
in any form reserved.
414
MORRONGIELLO
AND
TREHUB
of different nonoverlapping or overlapping signals; and (3) the precedence
effect, which refers to a listener’s failure to detect the second of two
identical sounds presented from separate spatial locations when a small
onset-time difference is introduced.
Davis and McCroskey (1980) reported systematic improvement in auditory fusion abilities between 3 and 8 years of age, with adult-like
performance reached by 9 years of age. For example. 3-year-olds experienced a transition between the perception of one versus two events
at interpulse intervals of 22 to 24 ms, 6-year-olds at I1 to 1.5 ms, and 9year-olds at 6 to 8 ms (see also Irwin, Ball, Kay, Stillman. & Rosser,
1985). Lowe and Campbell (1965) reported that the average onset-time
difference for accurate judgement of temporal order was 36.1 ms for
children 7 to 14 years of age compared to 20 to 25 ms for adults (Hirsh,
1959; Hirsh & Sherrick, 1961; Pisoni, 1977). Under certain listening
conditions, however, lo-week-old infants can discriminate
onset-time
differences of 30 ms (Jusczyk, Pisoni, Walley. & Murray, 1980). Morrongiello, Kulig, and Clifton (1984) reported higher thresholds for the
precedence effect in infants (25 ms for click trains) compared to preschool
children (12 ms for click trains, 30 ms for more spectrally complex
sounds), who, in turn, had significantly higher thresholds than adults for
sounds with greater spectral complexity (13 ms for click trains, 25 ms
for more complex sounds).
Clearly, the research to date reveals age-related improvement in auditory
temporal perception. However, each of the aforementioned
phenomena
involved perception of the duration of a silence interval. There has been
little developmental research on the perception of signal duration, although
the perception of both silence and signal duration contributes to the
discrimination
of speech segments (e.g., Eilers. Buli, Oiler, & Lewis.
1984; Mermelstein,
1978; Miller & Liberman, 1979) as well as rhythmic
variation (Fraisse, 1978). The aim of the present research was to examine
the abilities of infants, preschool children, and adults to discriminate
changes in signal and silence intervals.
Research with young infants reveals sensitivity to durational aspects
of auditory stimuli but the limits of this ability have not been determined.
Berg (1972) found that infants as young as 6 weeks discriminated
concomitant changes of 400 ms in the duration of signal and silence components
of a stimulus (i.e., 800 ms on and 1200 ms off versus 400 ms on and
1600 ms off). Morrongiello
(1984) found that 6- and 12-month-olds discriminated concomitant changes in duration of signal and silence components as small as 60 and 40 ms, respectively (e.g., 200 ms on and 200
ms off versus 160 ms on and 140 ms off). In a preliminary investigation
of signal duration discrimination
in children, McCroskey and Cory (1968)
reported systematic improvement between 3 and 16 years of age. However,
their task proved too difficult for children under 6 years of age and the
AUDITORY
TEMPORAL
PERCEPTION
415
wide range of scores for older children raises the possibility that the
complexity of the task also may have affected performance at other ages.
The paucity of research on the development of duration discrimination
stands in striking contrast to the considerable body of literature on adults’
perception of duration. Although much of the emphasis of this research
has not been on temporal acuity per se but on determining if duration
discrimination performance obeys Weber’s psychophysical law (e.g., Allan
& Kristofferson,
1974; Getty, 1975), the results, nonetheless, provide
estimates of duration discrimination thresholds. These threshold estimates
vary across studies as a function of psychophysical test procedure, stimulus
context, and duration of the standard interval, but range from approximately
10 to 25 ms for standard intervals between 150 and 400 ms (e.g., Abel,
1972; Chistovich, 1959; Creelman, 1962; Henry, 1948).
In the present investigation, observers were presented with a sequence
of 18 white-noise bursts, with the durational aspects of the middle 6
bursts or intervals altered. Perceptually, this produced a change in rhythm,
which is a property of sound sequences to which even young infants are
sensitive (Chang & Trehub, 1977; Demany, McKenzie, & Vurpillot, 1977;
Washburn & Cohen, 1984). The duration-change values chosen for study
in the present research, 5 to 100 ms, spanned the range of durations
used in a number of studies of adults’ temporal resolution. White noise
was used as the signal in order to eliminate the confounding of loudness
or spectral changes with signal duration changes (for further discussion
see Morrongiello,
1984). Listeners at each age were tested with a go/nogo conditioned discrimination
procedure in which they were repeatedly
presented with the standard 18-burst sequence and, on experimental
trials, duration changes were introduced. Head turns to the occurrence
of a change in duration on change (experimental)
trials were visually
reinforced, whereas head turns on no-change (control) trials were recorded
(i.e., false-alarm rate) but not reinforced (e.g., Eilers, Wilson, & Moore,
1977; Morrongiello,
1984; Trehub, Bull. & Thorpe, 1984).
METHOD
Subjects
The participants included 28 infants, 26 preschool children, and 25
adults; all participants were Caucasian and judged to be predominantly
from middle class backgrounds. The data of 3 infants were discarded
because of failure to meet a training criterion (N = 1) and failure to
complete both test sessions (N = 2). The data of 1 child were discarded
due to failure to complete both test sessions (N = 1). The final sample
consisted of 25 infants (8 males, 17 females) approximately
6 months of
age (SD = 10 days), 25 children (II males, 14 females) approximately
54 years of age (SD = 5 months), and 25 adults (12 males, 13 females)
416
MORRONGIELLO
AND
TREHUB
approximately 22 years of age (SD = 6 months). Infants and preschoolers
were recruited from the local community via birth announcements, posters,
newspaper and television ads, etc.; adult participants were recruited from
psychology courses. An interview with the participant or their parent
confirmed that no participant had a cold, throat, or ear infection within
three days of each test date.
Stimuli
The standard stimulus pattern consisted of a sequence of 18 whitenoise bursts having an overall duration of 7000 ms. Each burst and
interburst interval was 200 ms duration; bursts had a rise and decay time
of 30 ms. On experimental trials, the duration of the 7th through 12th
noise burst or interburst interval was decreased, resulting in an increase
in tempo. During the training period, listeners received duration changes
of 75, 100, and 125 ms. On trials during the testing period, the changes
were 10, 15, 20, and 100 ms for infants; 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 100 ms
for children: and 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 100 ms for adults. On control
trials, no change in the duration of the elements was made (i.e., 0 ms
change). Different duration-change
values were selected for each age
group based on extensive pilot tests in which we sought to determine a
set of values that spanned the competency range for listeners at each
age (i.e., not reliably discriminated
to easily discriminated).
Pilot tests
revealed also that infants would tolerate only a short test session (i.e.,
27 trials) in comparison to children and adults (i.e., 45 trials). Consequently,
they were tested with a smaller set of duration-change values (i.e.. four)
in comparison to children and adults (i.e., six). The stimuli were presented
at an average sound pressure level of 65 dB-C (62 dB-A) over an ambient
noise level of 46 dB-C (20 dB-A).
Apparatus
The signal was produced by a random-noise generator (General Radio,
Model 1381), then passed through an electronic audio switch that shaped
the rise and decay characteristics of each burst, amplified, and presented
over a single loudspeaker (Radio Shack) located inside a sound-attenuating
chamber (Industrial Acoustics Co.). The loudspeaker was positioned on
top of a four-chamber smoked Plexiglas box that contained four different
mechanical toys and lights that were used as reinforcers. Stimulus intensity
was measured with an impulse precision sound-level meter equipped
with a 0.5in. condenser microphone (Bruel and Kjaer, Model 2204). A
microcomputer
controlled the experiment and operated the equipment
through a custom-built
interface. A small, hand-size button box, which
interfaced with the computer, allowed the experimenter to initiate trials
and record responses while inside the testing chamber.
AUDITORY
TEMPORAL
PERCEPTION
417
Design and Procedure
The design of the experiment consisted of two within-subjects variables,
duration condition (signal, silence) and magnitude of duration change
(0 to 100 ms) at each age. Each participant completed two test sessions
within 2 weeks time and was randomly assigned to receive either the
signal or the silence condition on the first visit.
Infants. Throughout the 20-min session, the infant sat on the parent’s
lap across from an experimenter,
with the loudspeaker and toy box to
the infant’s right at an angle of 45”. Both the parent and the experimenter
wore headphones that played music continuously to mask their detection
of experimental
trials. Throughout
the session the experimenter
was
naive as to the type of trial to be presented. His or her task was to code
a head turn response whenever it occurred and to call for a trial when
the listener appeared ready (i.e., quiet with head centered). The goal
was to operantly condition infants to turn their head toward the loudspeaker
whenever they perceived a change in tempo within the auditory sequence.
To this end the standard sequence was repeatedly presented with an 800ms pause between successive presentations (i.e., 7800-ms onset to onset
time). When the infant was facing forward and the standard pattern had
played at least once, a trial could be initiated by the experimenter. Each
infant was given approximately
4.0 s in which to respond on a trial; the
response interval began at the start of the changed element and terminated
with the end of the pattern. A head turn toward the signal loudspeaker
that was greater than approximately
30” (i.e., a 3 facial view) was scored
as a response. A correct response on a change trial, as determined by
the microcomputer,
resulted in activation of one of the four visual reinforcers and lights for 4 s. If the 4-s reinforcment interval extended beyond
the conclusion of the test pattern then silence prevailed during this time
(i.e., the 800-ms pause between successive presentations was extended
until the reinforcer turned off). Immediately
following the reinforcer, the
standard sequence was presented again. Thus, there was never temporal
overlap between presentation of the standard sequence and the visual
reinforcer, which might have interfered with listeners associating the test
pattern and reinforcer. In addition to change trials, listeners also received
no-change or control trials in which the standard pattern continued to
play and head turn responses were scored. No-change control trials
provided an index of false-alarm rate. Responses on these trials were
not reinforced.
During training, listeners received a maximum of 12 no-change and 12
change trials (four replications each of 75, loo-, and 125ms duration
changes); trials were randomized with the constraint that there could be
no more than two consecutive trials of one type (change or no-change).
Each listener began training with two trials on which the task was dem-
418
MORRONGIELLO
AND
TREHUB
on&rated by the experimenter (i.e., the toy was automatically
delivered
at the initiation of a duration change and the experimenter looked toward
the toy throughout its presentation); the first was an example of the 125
ms condition and the second was of the IOO-ms condition. Following
these two trials, listeners had to meet a training criterion of 5 successive
correct responses (i.e., head turn on change trials and no head turn on
no-change trials) within 24 trials in order to proceed to testing.
The testing procedures were the same as the training procedures with
the exception that, in addition to no-change control trials on which infants
were not expected to respond, there were catch trials on which there
was a lOO-ms change in duration. These trials provided an index of the
infant’s attention and motivation through the session and ensured that,
on at least f of the trials, the infant would be capable of obtaining
reinforcement.
Each infant received a randomized ordering of 27 trials:
9 catch trials (lOO-ms change), 9 control trials (0-ms change), and 9 change
trials (3 replications each of lo-, IS-, and 20-ms duration changes).
Children and adults. Children and adults were tested with the same
procedures as for infants. They were told that they were going to play
a listening game and would sometimes be able to see toys. As well, we
pointed out the importance of not talking so that they could listen carefully.
Trials were initiated by the experimenter when the observer appeared
ready to listen (i.e., quiet with head centered). As for infants, head turns
toward the signal loudspeaker on change trials were coded as correct
responses and were visually reinforced. Head turn responses on nochange trials were recorded but not reinforced. The response interval
(4.0 s), reinforcement conditions (mechanical toys), and training phase
(5 successive correct responses needed) were identical to those reported
for infants. During the test phase, each child and adult received a randomized ordering of 45 trials: 15 catch trials (lOO-ms change), 15 control
(0-ms change), and 15 change trials (3 replications each of the five duration
change conditions), with a session lasting approximately
20 min.
RESULTS
Responses in each condition were converted to proportion scores and
parametric statistics were applied. Listeners at each age quickly learned
the task contingencies: Infants met the training criterion in 9 trials, children
in 10 trials, and adults in 9 trials. Moreover, there were no systematic
changes in performance over trials at any age. An analysis of variance
with condition (signal, silence), magnitude of duration change, and trials
as repeated-measures
factors was performed on the data at each age.
Results did not reveal any significant main or interaction effects involving
the trials factor (p’s > .05). Thus, differences in discrimination performance
as a function of duration magnitude were not related to systematic changes
in motivation or attention during the session.
AUDITORY
TEMPORAL
PERCEPTION
419
Within-age analyses. Because listeners at each age were tested under
different magnitude conditions, the data at each age initially were analyzed
separately. At each age, an analysis of variance was performed on the
proportion scores (see Table I), with repeated measurements on condition
(signal, silence) and magnitude of duration change. In each analysis,
performance on catch trials (i.e., lOO-ms condition), which approached
ceiling at each age, was excluded. A test to examine homogeneity of
variances also was performed on the data at each age, since the estimate
of false-alarm rate (i.e., 0-ms condition) was based on more trials than
estimates of performance in experimental
conditions. Finally, because
of unequal iV in the assignment of subjects to receive the signal versus
silence condition first (N = 12 for one order and 13 for the other), this
factor was not entered into any analyses of variance. Nonetheless, at
each age, correlated t tests were performed to examine the difference
between the mean performance levels of subjects receiving the signal
condition first in comparison to those who received it second (similarly
for the silence condition); to limit the number of these analyses we
collapsed over magnitude of duration condition since inspection of the
individual cell data suggested no interactive effects of this variable. Results
revealed no significant differences in mean performance levels, at any
age, as a function of the order of duration condition subjects received
(p’s > .05).
For 6-month-olds,
responding varied only as a function of magnitude
of duration change, F(3,72) = 5 1.23, p < .OOl . and there was no evidence
of significant heterogeneity of variance across conditions. As can be seen
in Table 1, infants responded to the 0-ms control condition about 27%
of the time. One-tailed Bonferroni t tests (Myers, 1979) revealed that
performance to the lo- and IS-ms changes did not differ from this false
alarm rate Q’s > .05); one-tailed tests were performed since it was
expected that the rate of false positives would be invariant across duration
conditions if subjects failed to discriminate the duration changes. The
incidence of responding to the 20-ms change (55%) was significantly
greater than that shown to the 0-, IO-, and IS-ms changes, t(24) = 6.34,
5.90, 5.68, respectively, p’s < .Ol. Responding was greatest for the 100ms catch trials (87%), and this was significantly greater than that shown
for the 20-ms condition, t(24) = 6.17, p < .Ol. In summary, infants’
ability to discriminate
duration changes did not vary as a function of
whether the signal or silence components were altered, and they reliably
discriminated
duration changes of at least 20 ms.
For preschool children, magnitude of duration change also was the
only factor that significantly influenced performance, F(5, 120) = 48.72,
p < -001 with a Greenhouse-Geisser
correction for heterogeneity of
variances (i.e., & = 1, 24). Performance was unaffected by the occurrence
of change in signal or silence components of the sequence. As can be
.I8
c.18)
Adults
.20
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-
5
_~~
-
.51
.76
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.58
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.61
(.31)
.49
(.?I)
.57
(.20)
.31
(.28)
.28
C.19)
.20
(.25)
20
I5
Signal
FOR EACH
_~..
10
OF RESWNSES
.87
C.22)
.72
t.28)
-
25
CONDITION
-
.95
(.13)
-
30
1
.99
C.09)
.98
c.08)
.87
(.lO)
100
.I7
(.I51
.I6
(.I41
.28
(.15)
0
DURATION
CHANGE
~.-~
.-
TABLE
AND
.24
(.24)
-
-
5
.53
c.32)
AGE
,411
.35
C.24)
I5
.60
C.33)
.7l
(.?O)
.56
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.85
(.22)
(28)
.70
-
25
GROUP”
20
_..
.53
C.22)
Silence
FOR EACH
C.29) (.20)
.22
IO
~-~-.
.26
(.21)
(MILLISECONDS)
Nvfe: The numbers in parentheses are the standard deviations.
“Some cells are empty because listeners at each age were tested under different conditions.
.I7
c.16)
Children
Age
0
-~____
Infants
.26
c.16)
PROWRTION
,.
-
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-
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.99
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100
R
0
AUDITORY
TEMPORAL
PERCEPTION
421
seen in Table 1, the incidence of false-alarm responses to the 0-ms control
condition was 16%. Bonferroni t tests (one-tailed) confirmed that performance to the lO-ms condition was at chance (p > .05), whereas children
responded reliably above chance level for duration changes of at least
15 ms (p’s < .05); it should be noted, since there was heterogeneity of
variance, that correlated t tests (i.e., separate variance estimates) yielded
the same conclusions. Furthermore, there was a reliable increasing linear
trend in perfomance with increments in the magnitude of duration change
between 10 and 30 ms (2 = 4.77, p < .Ol; see Snedecor & Cochran,
1980, pp. 206-208, for a discussion of this statistic). Thus, preschool
children, like 6month-olds, showed comparable discrimination performance
for signal and silence duration. In contrast to the infants, however,
children reliably discriminated
duration changes as small as 15 ms.
Adults showed a pattern of results similar to that for infants and
children. Performance varied only as a function of magnitude of duration
change, F(5, 120) = 69.70, p < .OOl with a Greenhouse-Geisser correction
for heterogeneity of variances (i.e., df = 1, 24). As can be seen in
Table 1, the incidence of chance responding to the 0-ms control was
about 18%, which did not differ significantly from responding to the 5ms change, 22% (p > .05). Both Bonferroni and correlated t tests (onetailed) indicated that adults responded above chance levels for duration
changes of at least 10 ms (p’s < .OS). In addition, like the children, they
showed a systematic linear increase in responding as the magnitude of
duration change increased between 5 and 25 ms (Z = 4.19, p < .Ol).
Between-age
analyses. In order to compare duration discrimination
performance across age, we examined performance on the duration change
values that were common to all ages-namely,
0, 10, 15, 20, and 100
ms. An analysis of variance was performed with age (3) as a betweensubjects factor and condition (2) and magnitude of duration change (5)
as within-subjects factors. Tests for heterogeneity of variance and covariance also were applied (see Myers, 1979; Winer, 1971). The results
indicated that performance varied with age (F(2, 72) = 5.62, p < .Ol)
and magnitude of duration change (F(4, 288) = 100.66, p < .OOl). Most
importantly,
infants, children, and adults differed in the incidence of
responses to the 0-, lo-, 15-, 20-, and lOO-ms changes, F(8, 288) = 5.90,
p < .Ol; each reported F value was significant at the probability value
indicated even after Greenhouse-Geisser
adjustments were applied to
correct for significant heterogeneity of variance and covariance.
Pairwise contrasts (two-tailed) revealed that the incidence of responding
to the 0-ms control was comparable for infants (27%), children (16%),
and adults (17%), all p’s > .05. For the IO-ms change, which neither
infants nor children discriminated
reliably, there was no significant difference in the incidence of responding between these ages (p > .05), but
422
MORRONGIELLO
AND
TREHUB
the performance of both infants (27%) and children (21%) was significantly
less than that of adults (52%) t(48) = 2.48, 2,70, respectively, p’s <
.05. For the Sms change, the incidence of responding by infants (33%)
was significantly less than that shown by adults (59%), t(48) = 2.19, p
< .05. The children’s performance, which exceeded chance, fell at an
intermediate level (48%) but did not significantly differ from infants’ @
> .05) or adults’ performance (p > .05). For the 20-ms change, there
was no significant difference in the incidence of responding by infants
(55%) in comparison to children (58%), and children in comparison to
adults (73%), p’s > .05. However, infants responded at significantly lower
levels in comparison to adults, t(48) = 2.18, p -=z .05. For the lOO-ms
catch trials, which provided an index of attention and motivation throughout
the test session, listeners at all ages responded at very high levels. The
performance of children (98%) and adults (99%) approached ceiling and
did not differ significantly (p > .05). Infants responded on 87% of these
trials, which was significantly less than the nearly perfect performance
shown by children and adults, t(48) = 3.14, 3.33, respectively, p’s <
.Ol.
DISCUSSION
The present findings reveal systematic improvement in auditory temporal
perception between infancy, early childhood, and adulthood. For infants,
reliable discrimination
was only observed for duration changes of at least
20 ms. In contrast, children detected duration changes of 15 ms and
adults discriminated
duration differences as small as 10 ms. Since there
were no age differences in learning the same task with the same procedures,
and motivation and attention (as indexed by performance on catch trials)
were consistently high across age, it seems unlikely that the observed
performance differences across age related to these nonauditory factors.
Rather, consistent with previous reports, the data suggest that there are
true age differences in auditory temporal perception skills.
The fact that performance did not vary at any age as a function of
whether signal or silence intervals were manipulated has implications for
the perception of speech. These findings suggest that listeners might be
equally good at discriminating
phonemes whose identity is cued by the
duration of steady-state components (e.g., many vowels), and those cued
by silence components (e.g., stop consonants). Furthermore,
6-montholds’ discrimination
of small changes in signal duration suggests that they
could, in principle, make adjustments for the rate of articulation of a
speaker in their perception of speech, as is the case for adults (Eimas
& Miller, 1980; Miller & Liberman, 1979; but see Jusczyk, Pisoni, Reed,
Fernald, & Myers, 1983; Pisoni, Carrell, & Gans, 1983).
An earlier study of listeners’ ability to detect binaural-temporal
differences that contribute to perception of the precedence effect revealed
AUDITORY
TEMPORAL
PERCEPTION
423
age-related improvements
between infants, preschoolers, and adults in
the ability to resolve these binaural-temporal
differences (Morrongiello
et al., 1984). In the present study, although we used diotic presentation
(i.e., the same signal to the two ears), the task does not necessitate
binaural processing but can be accomplished monaurally (i.e., a homophasic
rather than an antiphasic signal). Thus, the present study can be viewed
as measuring monaural-temporal
resolution, and it is the fn-st to do so
with young infants. The study of another monaural phenomenon, auditory
fusion, also has revealed an extended developmental course, with adultlike temporal perception not emerging until approximately
9 to 10 years
of age (Davis & McCroskey,
1980; Irwin et al., 1985). Taken together,
these findings suggest that there may be a common mechanism contributing
to age-related changes in the processing of monaural- and binaural-temporal
information.
Although one cannot dismiss the importance of perceptual
learning and experience to the observed age-related improvements
in
performance, biological factors also may play a significant role. Given
the extended period of development
for temporal resolution and the
auditory-developmental
course from peripheral to central structures
(Hecox, 1975), it is possible that the mechanism in question is central
in origin or involves a general structural change in the nervous system.
One possibility is myelination
of the auditory system, which continues
during childhood (Yakovlev & Lecours, 1967) and is known to affect
auditory processing. For example, research on patients with multiple
sclerosis, a progressive disease that results in demyelination of the central
nervous system, reveals changes in their auditory processing capacities
when lesions involve pathways of the central auditory system (Noffsinger,
Olsen, Carhart, Hart, & Sahgal, 1972). Whatever the mechanism responsible
for age-related improvements in auditory temporal perception, this study
substantiates other research indicating a protracted course of development
of these capacities.
Tests that examine the temporal integrity of the auditory system also
have practical applications. Research with adults indicates that deficits
in auditory temporal resolution correlate with other problems in hearing
and speech perception (e.g., Fitzgibbons & Wightman,
1982; Irwin,
Hinchcliff, & Kemp, 1981; Irwin & McAuley, 1987; Irwin & Purdy, 1982;
Zwicker & Schorn, 1982). Tests of auditory temporal perception may
help, too, in differentiating cortical from subcortical lesions of the auditory
system. Several studies with nonhuman animals indicate that lesions to
the auditory cortex result in the inability to discriminate
changes in
duration and temporal order of elements (e.g., Diamond & Neff, 1957;
Neff, 1960; Scharlock, Neff, & Strominger,
1965) coupled with intact
ability to discriminte changes in nontemporal aspects (e.g., frequency,
intensity) of a stimulus (e.g., Butler, Diamond, & Neff, 1957; Oesterreich,
Strominger. & Neff, 1971). Parallels in site of lesion effects have been
424
MORRONGIELLO
AND TREHUB
reported for human listeners. Lackner and Teuber (1973) reported that
damage to the left cerebral cortex resulted in auditory fusion thresholds
that were elevated in comparison to those of cortically intact adults (see
also Hochster & Kelly, 1981). Deficits in temporal-order
discrimination
following cortical damage also have been reported for adults (Lackner,
1982; Swisher, & Hirsch, 1972). Consistent with these findings are neurophysiological
studies revealing cortical cells specialized for detection
of temporal features such as repetition rate, duration, and the coding of
binaural-temporal
differences (Brugge, Dubrovsky, Aitkin, & Anderson,
1969; Brugge & Merzenich, 1973).
Temporal processing tests can help to determine whether auditory
temporal dysfunctions are contributing
to a child’s learning problems.
McCroskey and Kidder (1980) reported differences between learningdisabled and normal children in auditory fusion, with learning-disabled
children showing poorer temporal resolution and experiencing fusion over
longer intervals than normal children. Tallal and her colleagues have
shown, too, that language-disabled children often have difhculty processing
temporal aspects of rapidly presented auditory sequences and that comprehension improves when the temporal processing requirements are
minimized (Tallal & Newcombe, 1978; Tallal & Piercy, 1973, 1974).
The discrimination
of signal and silence duration represents another
aspect of auditory temporal perception that merits evaluation in the
examination of learning- and language-disabled children. Developmental
investigations
such as the present one can provide a baseline against
which clinical disturbances in auditory processing can be evaluated.
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RECEIVED:
February
5,
1987;
REVISED
July 6. 1987.