Sounds in everyday environments often follow one another in systematic ways determined by the properties and interactions of of corresponding sound sources. Predictable contextual relationships between consecutive sounds can provide perceptual benefit under adverse listening conditions. This work examines the role of such rule-based learning on identification of individual acoustically complex sounds within a sound sequence, and the effect of listener age. Younger and older adults with age-appropriate hearing were first familiarized with a set of rule-based sound sequences based on an arbitrary finite-state transitional diagram. Subsequently, listeners identified individual target sounds within sequences under a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR): 0 to -15 dB. The test sequences were a) familiar, rule-based; b) novel, rule-based; or c) novel, non rule-based. The results for both younger and older listeners revealed superior sound recognition in sequences versus in isolation, and a greater recognition accuracy of rule-based versus non rule-based sequences. However, younger listeners significantly outperformed older listeners. Implicit learning benefit generally did not correlate with measures of working memory processing. Current findings have implications for audiologic rehabilitation and auditory display design.

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