The importance of temporal fine structure for the intelligibility of speech in complex backgrounds
Abstract
Any complex sound that enters the normal ear is decomposed by the auditory filters into a series of relatively narrowband signals, each of which can be considered as a slowly varying envelope (E) superimposed on a more rapid temporal fine structure (TFS). It has been argued by several researchers that E information is sufficient for good intelligibility of speech in quiet, but that understanding speech in complex backgrounds, especially competing talkers, may require the use of TFS information. Hearing - impaired people appear to have a reduced ability to use TFS information, and this may partly account for their relatively poor ability to understand speech in complex backgrounds. Several studies are reviewed that assess these ideas, using both normal -hearing and hearing -impaired listeners. It is argued that TFS information may contribute to the perceptual segregation of speech from complex backgrounds, but that TFS information is probably not selectively involved in “dip listening”. The ability to use TFS information appears to decline with increasing age from the twenties onwards, even when the audiogram remains normal, and this partly accounts for the reduced ability of older listeners to understand speech in complex backgrounds.References
Bernstein, J. G., and Brungart, D. S. (2011). "Effects of spectral smearing and temporal fine-structure distortion on the fluctuating-masker benefit for speech at a fixed signal-to-noise ratio," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 473-488.
Bernstein, J. G. W., and Grant, K. W. (2009). "Auditory and auditory-visual intelligibility of speech in fluctuating maskers for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 3358-3372.
Brungart, D. S., Chang, P. S., Simpson, B. D., and Wang, D. (2006). "Isolating the energetic component of speech-on-speech masking with ideal time-frequency segregation," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120, 4007-4018.
Brungart, D. S., Simpson, B. D., Ericson, M. A., and Scott, K. R. (2001). "Informational and energetic masking effects in the perception of multiple simultaneous talkers," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2527-2538.
Darwin, C. J. (2009). "Listening to speech in the presence of other sounds," in The Perception of Speech: From Sound to Meaning, edited by B. C. J. Moore, L. K. Tyler, and W. D. Marslen-Wilsen (Oxford University Press, Oxford), pp. 151-169.
Duquesnoy, A. J. (1983). "Effect of a single interfering noise or speech source on the binaural sentence intelligibility of aged persons," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, 739-743.
Fantini, D. A., and Moore, B. C. J. (1994). "Profile analysis and comodulation detection differences using narrow bands of noise and their relation to comodulation masking release," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 2180-2191.
Festen, J. M., and Plomp, R. (1990). "Effects of fluctuating noise and interfering speech on the speech-reception threshold for impaired and normal hearing," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 1725-1736.
Füllgrabe, C., Berthommier, F., and Lorenzi, C. (2006). "Masking release for consonant features in temporally fluctuating background noise," Hear. Res. 211, 74-84.
Glasberg, B. R., and Moore, B. C. J. (1990). "Derivation of auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data," Hear. Res. 47, 103-138.
Goldman, S. A., Baer, T., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010). "Within-channel cues to comodulation masking release for single and symmetrically placed pairs of flanking bands," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2988-2997.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2009). "The contribution of temporal fine structure to the intelligibility of speech in steady and modulated noise," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 442-446.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010a). "Development of a fast method for measuring sensitivity to temporal fine structure information at low frequencies," Int. J. Audiol. 49, 940-946.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010b). "The importance of temporal fine structure information in speech at different spectral regions for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 1595-1608.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2011). "The effects of age and cochlear hearing loss on temporal fine structure sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and speech reception in noise," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 334-349.
Hopkins, K., Moore, B. C. J., and Stone, M. A. (2008). "Effects of moderate cochlear hearing loss on the ability to benefit from temporal fine structure information in speech," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 123, 1140-1153.
Hygge, S., Rönnberg, J., Larsby, B., and Arlinger, S. (1992). "Normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects' ability to just follow conversation in competing speech, reversed speech, and noise backgrounds," J. Speech Hear. Res. 35, 208-215.
Léger, A., Moore, B. C. J., and Lorenzi, C. (2011). "A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers," in Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders: 3rd International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2011) (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. (in press).
Lorenzi, C., and Moore, B. C. J. (2008). "Role of temporal envelope and fine structure cues in speech perception: A review," in Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing-Impaired Listeners. 1st International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2007), edited by T. Dau, J. M. Buchholz, J. M. Harte, and T. U. Christiansen (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. 263-272.
Lorenzi, C., Husson, M., Ardoint, M., and Debruille, X. (2006a). "Speech masking release in listeners with flat hearing loss: Effects of masker fluctuation rate on identification scores and phonetic feature reception," Int. J. Audiol. 45, 487-495.
Lorenzi, C., Gilbert, G., Carn, C., Garnier, S., and Moore, B. C. J. (2006b). "Speech perception problems of the hearing impaired reflect inability to use temporal fine structure," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 18866-18869.
Lunner, T., Hietkamp, R. K., Andersen, M. R., Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2011). "Effect of speech material on the benefit of temporal fine structure information in speech for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired participants," Ear Hear. (submitted).
Moore, B. C. J. (1988). "Dynamic aspects of auditory masking," in Auditory Function: Neurobiological Bases of Hearing, edited by G. Edelman, W. Gall, and W. Cowan (Wiley, New York), pp. 585-607.
Moore, B. C. J. (2003). An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, 5th Ed. (Emerald, Bingley, UK), pp. 413.
Moore, B. C. J. (2008a). "The role of temporal fine structure in normal and impaired hearing," in Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing-Impaired Listeners. 1st International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2007), edited by T. Dau, J. M. Buchholz, J. M. Harte, and T. U. Christiansen (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. 247-262.
Moore, B. C. J. (2008b). "The role of temporal fine structure processing in pitch perception, masking, and speech perception for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired people," J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. 9, 399-406.
Moore, B. C. J., and Glasberg, B. R. (1987). "Factors affecting thresholds for sinusoidal signals in narrow-band maskers with fluctuating envelopes," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 69-79.
Moore, B. C. J., and Sek, A. (2009). "Development of a fast method for determining sensitivity to temporal fine structure," Int. J. Audiol. 48, 161-171.
Moore, B. C. J., Vickers, D. A., and Mehta, A. (2011). "The effects of age on temporal fine structure sensitivity in monaural and binaural conditions," Int. J. Audiol. (submitted).
Nelson, P. B., and Jin, S. H. (2002). "Understanding speech in single-talker interference: Normal-hearing listeners and cochlear implant users," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 2429.
Nelson, P. B., and Jin, S. H. (2004). "Factors affecting speech understanding in gated interference: cochlear implant users and normal-hearing listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115, 2286-2294.
Nelson, P. B., Jin, S. H., Carney, A. E., and Nelson, D. A. (2003). "Understanding speech in modulated interference: cochlear implant users and normal-hearing listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 961-968.
Peters, R. W., and Moore, B. C. J. (1992). "Auditory filters and aging: filters when auditory thresholds are normal," in Auditory Physiology and Perception, edited by Y. Cazals, L. Demany, and K. Horner (Pergamon, Oxford), pp. 179-185.
Peters, R. W., Moore, B. C. J., and Baer, T. (1998). "Speech reception thresholds in noise with and without spectral and temporal dips for hearing-impaired and normally hearing people," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103, 577-587.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., and Schneider, B. A. (1991). "Masking-level differences in the elderly: a comparison of antiphasic and time-delay dichotic conditions," J. Speech Hear. Res. 34, 1410-1422.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., and Schneider, B. A. (1992). "The effect of interaural delay of the masker on masking-level differences in young and old subjects," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91, 2129-2135.
Schooneveldt, G. P., and Moore, B. C. J. (1987). "Comodulation masking release (CMR): effects of signal frequency, flanking-band frequency, masker bandwidth, flanking-band level, and monotic versus dichotic presentation of the flanking band," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 1944-1956.
Shannon, R. V., Zeng, F.-G., Kamath, V., Wygonski, J., and Ekelid, M. (1995). "Speech recognition with primarily temporal cues," Science 270, 303-304.
Stone, M. A., Füllgrabe, C., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010). "Relative contribution to speech intelligibility of different envelope modulation rates within the speech dynamic range," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2127-2137.
Stone, M. A., Moore, B. C. J., and Füllgrabe, C. (2011). "The dynamic range of useful temporal fine structure cues for speech in the presence of a competing talker," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (in press).
Strelcyk, O., and Dau, T. (2009). "Relations between frequency selectivity, temporal fine-structure processing, and speech reception in impaired hearing," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 3328-3345.
Studebaker, G. A., and Sherbecoe, R. L. (2002). "Intensity-importance functions for bandlimited monosyllabic words," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 1422-1436.
Wang, D., Kjems, U., Pedersen, M. S., Boldt, J. B., and Lunner, T. (2009). "Speech intelligibility in background noise with ideal binary time-frequency masking," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 2336-2347.
Zeng, F. G., Nie, K., Stickney, G. S., Kong, Y. Y., Vongphoe, M., Bhargave, A., Wei, C., Cao, K. (2005). "Speech recognition with amplitude and frequency modulations," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 2293-2298.
Bernstein, J. G. W., and Grant, K. W. (2009). "Auditory and auditory-visual intelligibility of speech in fluctuating maskers for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 3358-3372.
Brungart, D. S., Chang, P. S., Simpson, B. D., and Wang, D. (2006). "Isolating the energetic component of speech-on-speech masking with ideal time-frequency segregation," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120, 4007-4018.
Brungart, D. S., Simpson, B. D., Ericson, M. A., and Scott, K. R. (2001). "Informational and energetic masking effects in the perception of multiple simultaneous talkers," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2527-2538.
Darwin, C. J. (2009). "Listening to speech in the presence of other sounds," in The Perception of Speech: From Sound to Meaning, edited by B. C. J. Moore, L. K. Tyler, and W. D. Marslen-Wilsen (Oxford University Press, Oxford), pp. 151-169.
Duquesnoy, A. J. (1983). "Effect of a single interfering noise or speech source on the binaural sentence intelligibility of aged persons," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, 739-743.
Fantini, D. A., and Moore, B. C. J. (1994). "Profile analysis and comodulation detection differences using narrow bands of noise and their relation to comodulation masking release," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 2180-2191.
Festen, J. M., and Plomp, R. (1990). "Effects of fluctuating noise and interfering speech on the speech-reception threshold for impaired and normal hearing," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 1725-1736.
Füllgrabe, C., Berthommier, F., and Lorenzi, C. (2006). "Masking release for consonant features in temporally fluctuating background noise," Hear. Res. 211, 74-84.
Glasberg, B. R., and Moore, B. C. J. (1990). "Derivation of auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data," Hear. Res. 47, 103-138.
Goldman, S. A., Baer, T., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010). "Within-channel cues to comodulation masking release for single and symmetrically placed pairs of flanking bands," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2988-2997.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2009). "The contribution of temporal fine structure to the intelligibility of speech in steady and modulated noise," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 442-446.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010a). "Development of a fast method for measuring sensitivity to temporal fine structure information at low frequencies," Int. J. Audiol. 49, 940-946.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010b). "The importance of temporal fine structure information in speech at different spectral regions for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 1595-1608.
Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2011). "The effects of age and cochlear hearing loss on temporal fine structure sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and speech reception in noise," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 334-349.
Hopkins, K., Moore, B. C. J., and Stone, M. A. (2008). "Effects of moderate cochlear hearing loss on the ability to benefit from temporal fine structure information in speech," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 123, 1140-1153.
Hygge, S., Rönnberg, J., Larsby, B., and Arlinger, S. (1992). "Normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects' ability to just follow conversation in competing speech, reversed speech, and noise backgrounds," J. Speech Hear. Res. 35, 208-215.
Léger, A., Moore, B. C. J., and Lorenzi, C. (2011). "A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers," in Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders: 3rd International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2011) (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. (in press).
Lorenzi, C., and Moore, B. C. J. (2008). "Role of temporal envelope and fine structure cues in speech perception: A review," in Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing-Impaired Listeners. 1st International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2007), edited by T. Dau, J. M. Buchholz, J. M. Harte, and T. U. Christiansen (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. 263-272.
Lorenzi, C., Husson, M., Ardoint, M., and Debruille, X. (2006a). "Speech masking release in listeners with flat hearing loss: Effects of masker fluctuation rate on identification scores and phonetic feature reception," Int. J. Audiol. 45, 487-495.
Lorenzi, C., Gilbert, G., Carn, C., Garnier, S., and Moore, B. C. J. (2006b). "Speech perception problems of the hearing impaired reflect inability to use temporal fine structure," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 18866-18869.
Lunner, T., Hietkamp, R. K., Andersen, M. R., Hopkins, K., and Moore, B. C. J. (2011). "Effect of speech material on the benefit of temporal fine structure information in speech for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired participants," Ear Hear. (submitted).
Moore, B. C. J. (1988). "Dynamic aspects of auditory masking," in Auditory Function: Neurobiological Bases of Hearing, edited by G. Edelman, W. Gall, and W. Cowan (Wiley, New York), pp. 585-607.
Moore, B. C. J. (2003). An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, 5th Ed. (Emerald, Bingley, UK), pp. 413.
Moore, B. C. J. (2008a). "The role of temporal fine structure in normal and impaired hearing," in Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing-Impaired Listeners. 1st International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR 2007), edited by T. Dau, J. M. Buchholz, J. M. Harte, and T. U. Christiansen (Centertryk A/S, Denmark), pp. 247-262.
Moore, B. C. J. (2008b). "The role of temporal fine structure processing in pitch perception, masking, and speech perception for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired people," J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. 9, 399-406.
Moore, B. C. J., and Glasberg, B. R. (1987). "Factors affecting thresholds for sinusoidal signals in narrow-band maskers with fluctuating envelopes," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 69-79.
Moore, B. C. J., and Sek, A. (2009). "Development of a fast method for determining sensitivity to temporal fine structure," Int. J. Audiol. 48, 161-171.
Moore, B. C. J., Vickers, D. A., and Mehta, A. (2011). "The effects of age on temporal fine structure sensitivity in monaural and binaural conditions," Int. J. Audiol. (submitted).
Nelson, P. B., and Jin, S. H. (2002). "Understanding speech in single-talker interference: Normal-hearing listeners and cochlear implant users," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 2429.
Nelson, P. B., and Jin, S. H. (2004). "Factors affecting speech understanding in gated interference: cochlear implant users and normal-hearing listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115, 2286-2294.
Nelson, P. B., Jin, S. H., Carney, A. E., and Nelson, D. A. (2003). "Understanding speech in modulated interference: cochlear implant users and normal-hearing listeners," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 961-968.
Peters, R. W., and Moore, B. C. J. (1992). "Auditory filters and aging: filters when auditory thresholds are normal," in Auditory Physiology and Perception, edited by Y. Cazals, L. Demany, and K. Horner (Pergamon, Oxford), pp. 179-185.
Peters, R. W., Moore, B. C. J., and Baer, T. (1998). "Speech reception thresholds in noise with and without spectral and temporal dips for hearing-impaired and normally hearing people," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103, 577-587.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., and Schneider, B. A. (1991). "Masking-level differences in the elderly: a comparison of antiphasic and time-delay dichotic conditions," J. Speech Hear. Res. 34, 1410-1422.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., and Schneider, B. A. (1992). "The effect of interaural delay of the masker on masking-level differences in young and old subjects," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91, 2129-2135.
Schooneveldt, G. P., and Moore, B. C. J. (1987). "Comodulation masking release (CMR): effects of signal frequency, flanking-band frequency, masker bandwidth, flanking-band level, and monotic versus dichotic presentation of the flanking band," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 1944-1956.
Shannon, R. V., Zeng, F.-G., Kamath, V., Wygonski, J., and Ekelid, M. (1995). "Speech recognition with primarily temporal cues," Science 270, 303-304.
Stone, M. A., Füllgrabe, C., and Moore, B. C. J. (2010). "Relative contribution to speech intelligibility of different envelope modulation rates within the speech dynamic range," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2127-2137.
Stone, M. A., Moore, B. C. J., and Füllgrabe, C. (2011). "The dynamic range of useful temporal fine structure cues for speech in the presence of a competing talker," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (in press).
Strelcyk, O., and Dau, T. (2009). "Relations between frequency selectivity, temporal fine-structure processing, and speech reception in impaired hearing," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 3328-3345.
Studebaker, G. A., and Sherbecoe, R. L. (2002). "Intensity-importance functions for bandlimited monosyllabic words," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 1422-1436.
Wang, D., Kjems, U., Pedersen, M. S., Boldt, J. B., and Lunner, T. (2009). "Speech intelligibility in background noise with ideal binary time-frequency masking," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 2336-2347.
Zeng, F. G., Nie, K., Stickney, G. S., Kong, Y. Y., Vongphoe, M., Bhargave, A., Wei, C., Cao, K. (2005). "Speech recognition with amplitude and frequency modulations," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 2293-2298.
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2011-12-15
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Moore, B. C. J. (2011). The importance of temporal fine structure for the intelligibility of speech in complex backgrounds. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 3, 21–32. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2011-03
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2011/1. Indicators of hearing impairment and measures of speech perception
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