A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers

Authors

  • Agnès Léger Equipe Audition, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, École normale supérieure, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France; Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France; UMR CNRS 8158, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France
  • Brian C. J. Moore Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Streeet, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK
  • Christian Lorenzi Equipe Audition, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, École normale supérieure, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France; Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France; UMR CNRS 8158, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France

Abstract

For normal-hearing listeners, intelligibility is higher for speech in fluctuating than in steady noise. This difference is typically reduced for hearing-impaired listeners. It has recently been suggested (Bernstein and Grant, 2009) that the limited benefit for hearing-impaired listeners reported previously results largely from the higher signal-to-noise ratio at which intelligibility was estimated for those listeners in the baseline condition using steady noise. Several studies are reviewed in which normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners were tested at identical signal-to-noise ratios; these studies showed limited benefit from noise fluctuations for hearing- impaired listeners, even those with mild losses, despite normal performance in steady noise. Thus, the reduced masking release cannot be explained entirely by the signal-to-noise ratio at which the measurements were made. It also cannot be explained by the amount and configuration of the hearing losses, frequency region, speech material or age.

References

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Additional Files

Published

2011-12-15

How to Cite

Léger, A., Moore, B. C. J., & Lorenzi, C. (2011). A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 3, 159–166. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2011-19

Issue

Vol. 3 (2011): Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders

Section

2011/1. Indicators of hearing impairment and measures of speech perception

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