The ability to identify relevant signals from multisource backgrounds is essential to successful communication in everyday environments that can be particularly challenging for older adults with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Listeners encounter informational masking (IM) in everyday listening environments. IM is commonly defined as masking that occurs beyond what can be attributed to energetic masking (EM). Contrary to EM, which addresses peripheral limitations of the auditory system, IM is believed to be mediated by interference in the central auditory processing of the signal.

The present study was designed to extend current findings on IM to study the effects of SNHL and age. Specifically to investigate the potential interaction between aging and hearing loss in terms of IM that may contribute to the significant difficulty some older adults experience in complex and uncertain multisource listening environments. The current project takes an initial step toward this goal through two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to develop and refine the experimental paradigm on a population of young adults prior to testing in older adults. Experiment 2 used the refined IM paradigm to address two research questions: (1) does age affect IM?, and (2) does SNHL in older adults affect IM? The overall goal of this research is to further our understanding of IM in older adults with and without SNHL.