A multimodal assessment of sensory thresholds in aging

J C Stevens; L A Cruz; L E Marks; S Lakatos

doi:10.1093/geronb/53B.4.P263

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A multimodal assessment of sensory thresholds in aging

Journal article

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Peer reviewed

A multimodal assessment of sensory thresholds in aging

J C Stevens, L A Cruz, L E Marks and S Lakatos

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, Vol.53(4), pp.P263-P272

07/1998

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/53B.4.P263

Handle:

https://hdl.handle.net/2376/103680

PMID: 9679518

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https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/53B.4.P263View

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Abstract

Pitch Discrimination

Vibration

Sensory Thresholds

Aging - psychology

Reference Values

Cognition

Touch

Auditory Threshold

Smell

Thermosensing

Neuropsychological Tests

Adolescent

Aged

Taste Threshold

Young and elderly subjects yielded forced-choice detection thresholds in each of seven sensory tasks: (1) taste of sodium chloride, (2) smell of butanol, (3) cooling, (4) low-frequency vibrotaction, (5) high-frequency vibrotaction, (6) low-frequency hearing, and (7) high-frequency hearing. Average scores across these tasks nearly perfectly separated the 22 elderly from the 15 young subjects. For individual modalities, however, separation between the groups varied from complete (high-frequency touch) to negligible (low-frequency hearing). Scores on the Boston Picture Naming Test and especially the Wechsler Logical Memory Test correlated strongly with average threshold score (Pearson r = .80) and moderately with scores on individual modalities. This sensory-cognitive link is not caused, as might be supposed, by diminishing age-related capacity to handle the detection task, because the very same task resulted in negligible age effect (low-frequency hearing) and large effect (high-frequency hearing) in the same subjects.

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Details

Title: A multimodal assessment of sensory thresholds in aging
Creators: J C Stevens - John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. jstevens@jbpierce.org
L A Cruz
L E Marks
S Lakatos
Publication Details: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, Vol.53(4), pp.P263-P272
Academic Unit: Department of Psychology
Publisher: United States
Grant note: F32 DC00174 / NIDCD NIH HHS AG 04287 / NIA NIH HHS AG 10295 / NIA NIH HHS
Identifiers: 99900546686501842
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article