Electrophysiologic and Behavioral Masking Level Differences in Young and Older Listeners

All participants had MLDs for all test conditions. Younger groups had larger MLDs compared with older groups. The interaction of age and test method showed that the smallest MLDs were for the older groups. The effect of age showed that the two older groups had significantly smaller eMLDs compared with the younger groups. The effects of test method were not significantly different for the younger groups. ARHL contributed minor effects (~2 dB to the size of both eMLDs and vMLDs). These results suggest that the ability to process out-of-phase signals declined with age. The eMLD is more sensitive to temporal processing deficits compared with the traditional vMLD.