@ttpphd That's nice! I am 75 y. of age. My hearing is as perfect as it can be for my age according to the audilogist. But I have trouble hearing what people say in a noisy environment. I heard this is a question of poorer central processing.
That's a major area of research in auditory science, the role of aging in auditory perception. It's not currently possible to pinpoint with high certainty why someone has difficulty with understanding speech in noise. A list of potential factors in this toot and the next:
Temporal changes in neurons:
With age, neurons become less reliable and more jittered in the timing of their responses, which results in poorer neural representation of speech.
Cochlear synaptopathy: the connection between the inner ear and the auditory nerve has been disrupted at the synapse. This can degrade neural signals without affecting the detection of very soft sounds. Being alive longer means more time to accumulate such damage.
Central auditory processing changes: Aging may affect cortical processing. Even if the ear and 8th nerve are otherwise functioning normally, the brain may struggle to use that info effectively.
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