Contribution of low- and high-frequency bands to binaural unmasking in hearing-impaired listeners

Forfattere

  • Gusztav Lőcsei Hearing Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
  • Sébastien Santurette Hearing Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery & Audiology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Torsten Dau Hearing Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
  • Ewen N. MacDonald Hearing Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Nøgleord:

binaural unmasking, interaural time difference, hearing loss

Resumé

This study investigated the contribution of interaural timing differences (ITDs) in different frequency regions to binaural unmasking (BU) of speech. Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) and binaural intelligibility level differences (BILDs) were measured in two-talker babble in 6 young normal-hearing (NH) and 9 elderly hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with normal or closeto- normal hearing at and below 1.5 kHz. Target sentences were presented diotically, embedded in a stream of diotic or dichotic maskers. Both target and masker sentences were split into frequency regions above and below 1.25 kHz. In the dichotic listening conditions, the maskers were lateralized to the left side by introducing 0.68-ms ITDs in either the low-frequency band, the high-frequency band, or both bands simultaneously. BILDs were found to be similar in both listener groups when the ITDs were imposed on the lowfrequency band only. ITDs in the high-frequency band alone did not produce any BILD in any of the groups. However, when ITDs were imposed in both frequency bands, the NH listeners yielded significantly greater BILDs than the HI listeners. The results suggest that, on a group level, HI listeners relied solely on ITDs in the low-frequency band while NH listeners were able to utilize envelope ITDs above 1.25 kHz to facilitate the BU of speech.

Referencer

Bronkhorst, A.W., and Plomp, R. (1988). “The effect of head-induced interaural time and level differences on speech intelligibility in noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 83, 1508-1516. doi: 10.1121/1.395906

Edmonds, B.A., and Culling, J.F. (2005). “The spatial unmasking of speech: evidence for within-channel processing of interaural time delay,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 117, 3069-3078. doi: 10.1121/1.1880752

He, N.-j., Mills, J.H., Ahlstrom, J.B., and Dubno, J.R. (2008). “Age-related differences in the temporal modulation transfer function with pure-tone carriers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 124, 3841-3849. doi: 10.1121/1.2998779

King, A., Hopkins, K., and Plack, C.J. (2014). “The effects of age and hearing loss on interaural phase difference discrimination,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 135, 342-351. doi: 10.1121/1.4838995

Lacher-Foug`ere, S., and Demany, L. (2005). “Consequences of cochlear damage for the detection of interaural phase differences,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 118, 2519-2526. doi: 10.1121/1.2032747

Levitt, H., and Rabiner, L.R. (1967). “Predicting binaural gain in intelligibility and release from masking for speech,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 42, 820-829. doi: 10.1121/1.1910654

Lőcsei, G., Pedersen, J.H., Laugesen, S., Santurette, S., Dau, T., and MacDonald, E.N. (2016). “Temporal fine-structure coding and lateralized speech perception in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” Trends Hear., 20, 1-15. doi: 10.1177/2331216516660962

Neher, T., Lunner, T., Hopkins, K., and Moore, B.C.J. (2012). “Binaural temporal fine structure sensitivity, cognitive function, and spatial speech recognition of hearing-impaired listeners (L),” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 2561-2564. doi: 10.1121/1.3689850

Nielsen, J., Dau, T., and Neher, T. (2014). “A Danish open-set speech corpus for competing-speech studies,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 135, 407-420. doi: 10.1121/1.4835935

Santurette, S., and Dau, T. (2012). “Relating binaural pitch perception to the individual listener’s auditory profile,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 2968-2986. doi: 10.1121/1.3689554

Strouse, A., Ashmead, D.H., Ohde, R.N., and Grantham, D.W. (1998). “Temporal processing in the aging auditory system,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 104, 2385-2399. doi: 10.1121/1.423748

Yderligere filer

Publiceret

2018-01-04

Citation/Eksport

Lőcsei, G., Santurette, S., Dau, T., & MacDonald, E. N. (2018). Contribution of low- and high-frequency bands to binaural unmasking in hearing-impaired listeners. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 6, 303–310. Hentet fra https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2017-37

Nummer

Sektion

2017/5. Speech perception: Behavioral measures and modelling