Drug Effects on the Auditory Speech Discrimination Mechanisms: The action of atropine and scopolamine

Abstract

The influence on hearing discrimination of atropine and scopolamine has been investigated; these drugs are known to depress temporarily the mental performances. The analysis of audiometric results shows that only the intelligibility of low-redundancy speech is impaired proportionally to the mental depression. It is concluded that the troubles of sensory message integration caused by atropine and scopolamine leads to a decrease of auditory discrimination and impairs the processes of decoding of the speech message.