Hearing and sight are the most important senses for brain development, with hearing, particularly its role in language development, being crucial for cognitive abilities (Humes et al., 2013a; Kuhl, 2010; Kujala et al., 2023). The onset of hearing deterioration starts around the age of 30, reaching clinical relevance around 60 years of age, when it is described as age related hearing loss – presbycusis (Gates and Cooper, 1991). Hearing disorders may be related to impairments of the sensory periphery, central auditory system or both. Despite a common assumption that hearing difficulties result mostly from an inner ear pathology represented by degeneration of the hair cells, stria vascularis, stiffening of the basilar membrane or combination of all (Schuknecht and Gacek, 1993), the results of recent studies show that many deficits have a strong central component (Gates and Mills, 2005; Profant et al., 2015; 2014) that is not necessarily related directly to the elevation of hearing thresholds (Kujawa and Liberman, 2009; Moore et al., 2012), although deficits at the peripheral level will apparently affect all the subsequent processing. The standard clinical approach to estimating the level of hearing loss is based on examination of auditory thresholds by pure tone audiometry, supported by tympanometry and potentially by examination of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and brainstem audiometry (ABR). In cases, when the main complaint of patient suffering from hearing loss is a problem with speech perception, hearing examination is complemented by speech audiometry. Nonetheless, there is an increasing number of patients with subjective hearing difficulties that show only minimal pathology during clinical examination. In part, central deficits are largely under-diagnosed due to lacking examination methods and those that are available are not routinely used (e.g. cortical audiometry including mismatch negativity, speech in noise, binaural interactions tests (ITD, ILD), dichotic listening (dichotic digit tests, competing sentences, etc.). In addition, central auditory deficits may be strongly influenced by general cognitive disabilities of the subject. Overall, present situation results in insufficient treatment and rehabilitation of hearing loss. For a more appropriate and efficient approach, extended diagnostic tools are needed that would enable to separate the contribution of different aspects to the overall hearing ability.

Recently, we have begun employing more complex audiometric examinations with the aim to better characterize different types of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) (Bureš et al., 2019; Profant et al., 2019; 2017; Svobodová et al., 2025). Our observations reveal varying effects of aging on different structures within the auditory system, as well as some intriguing interactions between central and peripheral functions. In particular, the assessment of temporal processing, which is seldom included in standard clinical approaches, indicates normal peripheral coding within the cochlea but shows a significant impact of aging on interaural interactions and cortical processing of temporal parameters (Profant et al., 2019).

In line with these findings, we have proposed a battery of tests that can be used in the concept of extended diagnostics. Specifically, these tests include measurements targeted at peripheral processing related both to intensity and temporal dimensions (detection thresholds of tones in quiet and background noise, detection of short tones), measurements targeted at several types of temporal processing occurring at various levels of the auditory system (sensitivity to interaural time delay, detection thresholds of frequency and amplitude modulation, detection thresholds of gaps in noise), and measurements targeted at more complex auditory processing associated with conscious evaluation and interpretation of the stimulus (frequency and duration pattern tests, recognition of speech in noise and interrupted speech). To bring the tests closer to the clinical practice, the proposed measurements are designed to be time efficient and simple to administer.

The main aim of the current paper is to estimate standard mean values and variability of the test outputs in dependence of age and sex. There are standards for different age groups for pure tone audiometry (ISO 389-8, 2004) and ABR (Konrad-Martin et al., 2012), as well as directions how to evaluate presence of OAE (Akinpelu et al., 2014; Hoth et al., 2010). Jilek et al. (2014) complemented pure tone audiometry ISO Norm 389-5 (2006) for different age groups in frequencies above 8 kHz. However, for most other tests, the information about means and variances appropriate for subjects of different ages is lacking. To bridge this gap, we here provide average data for each test obtained in normal-hearing subjects aged between 18 and 87 years. The data are categorized into six distinct 10-year age groups (from 20 to 80 years of age), in addition, we provide linear and non-linear fits of the values across the lifespan. These results should establish a baseline for future comparisons of hearing parameters across different pathologies and age groups. Relationships and interactions between various auditory tests, including analysis and modeling with AI, will be explored in our upcoming article.