Toward a Nonspeech Test of Auditory Cognition: Semantic Context Effects in Environmental Sound Identification in Adults of Varying Age and Hearing Abilities.

Objective: Sounds in everyday environments tend to follow one another as events unfold over time. The tacit knowledge of contextual relationships among environmental sounds can influence their perception. We examined the effect of semantic context on the identification of sequences of environmental sounds by adults of varying age and hearing abilities, with an aim to develop a nonspeech test of auditory cognition.