Factors affecting masking release for speech in modulated noise for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

George, Erwin L. J.; Festen, Joost Μ.; Houtgast, Tammo

doi:10.1121/1.2266530

Cited by 165 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 78 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…Typically, experimental features that result in high SNR in the steady noise baseline condition are associated with relatively small masking release in the synchronous modulation condition. Such experimental features include listener group type, such as normal hearing vs hearing impairment (e.g., Wilson and Carhart, 1969;Festen and Plomp, 1990;Takahashi and Bacon, 1992;Eisenberg et al, 1995;Peters et al, 1998;George et al, 2006), or stimulus characteristics such as unfiltered or filtered speech presented to normal-hearing listeners (Oxenham and Simonson, 2009). This association between a high SRT in steady noise and low magnitude of masking release is not followed uniformly when comparing our previous results for a pink noise masker (Hall et al, 2014) to the current results for a speechshaped masker.…”

Section: B Masking Releasecontrasting

confidence: 37%

Factors affecting the development of speech recognition in steady and modulated noise

Hall

Buss

Grose

2016

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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This study used a checkerboard-masking paradigm to investigate the development of the speech reception threshold (SRT) for monosyllabic words in synchronously and asynchronously modulated noise. In asynchronous modulation, masker frequencies below 1300 Hz were gated off when frequencies above 1300 Hz were gated on, and vice versa. The goals of the study were to examine development of the ability to use asynchronous spectro-temporal cues for speech recognition and to assess factors related to speech frequency region and audible speech bandwidth. A speech-shaped noise masker was steady or was modulated synchronously or asynchronously across frequency. Target words were presented to 5-7 year old children or to adults. Overall, children showed higher SRTs and smaller masking release than adults. Consideration of the present results along with previous findings supports the idea that children can have particularly poor masked SRTs when the speech and masker spectra differ substantially, and that this may arise due to children requiring a wider speech bandwidth than adults for speech recognition. The results were also consistent with the idea that children are relatively poor in integrating speech cues when the frequency regions with the best signal-to-noise ratios vary across frequency as a function of time.

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Section: B Masking Releasecontrasting

confidence: 37%

Factors affecting the development of speech recognition in steady and modulated noise

Hall

Buss

Grose

2016

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…This effect has been shown consistently for persons with normal hearing (Duquesnoy, 1983, George, Festen & Houtgast, 2006. However, individuals with hearing impairment do not always seem to benefit in the same way, possibly due to temporal and spectral smearing (Festen & Plomp, 1990;George et al, 2006;George et al, 2007;Lorenzi, Gilbert, Carn, Garnier & Moore, 2006;Wagener, Brand & Kollmeier, 2006). Alternatively, it has been proposed that benefit of listening in the dips of modulated noise decreases with increasing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).…”

Section: Noisementioning

confidence: 94%

Exploring Cognitive Spare Capacity : Executive Processing of Degraded Speech

Mishra¹

2014

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Cognitive resources, specifically working memory capacity are used for listening to speech, especially in noise. Cognitive resources are limited, and if listeners allocate a greater share of these resources to recovering the input signal in noise, fewer resources are available for interpreting and encoding its linguistic content. Although the importance of CSC for individual success in communicative situations has been acknowledged, this concept has not hitherto been explored experimentally. In this thesis, a CSC test (CSCT) was developed and administered to young adults with normal hearing and older adults with age-related hearing loss. CSCT required executive processing of speech at different memory loads with and without visual cues in different noise conditions. A free recall task using the same material was administered for comparison purposes and a battery of cognitive tests was administered to understand the relation between CSC and established cognitive concepts. The aims of the thesis were to investigate how CSC is influenced by 1) different executive demands and memory loads; 2) background noise; 3) visual cues; 4) aging and concomitant hearing loss. The results showed that 1) CSC was sensitive to memory load, and updating demands reduced CSC more than inhibition demands; 2) CSC was reduced in background noise compared to quiet; 3) visual cues enhanced CSC especially in noise; 4) CSC was reduced with ageing and concomitant hearing loss especially when visual cues were absent, memory demands were increased and background noise was speech-like. The main finding of this thesis was that visual cues enhanced CSC for older individuals with hearing loss, specifically in adverse listening conditions. This demonstrates the importance of audiovisual testing in audiological assessment. Further, specific cognitive resources depleted during listening in noise were at least partially compensated by other cognitive functions. This thesis is the first step towards a theoretical understanding of CSC and in future, tests of CSC may play a crucial role in planning rehabilitation of persons with hearing loss.

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“…The noise spectrum peaked at 400-500 Hz and rolled off by 13.4 dB at 2000 Hz. Fluctuating noise was squarewave modulated with 100 % depth and a modulation frequency of 16 Hz, as in a previous human study (George et al 2006). Gating functions and squarewave modulation, when used, were imposed on the noise waveforms after scaling the level.…”

Section: Behavioral Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Neural discrimination thresholds were estimated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis (Egan 1975) of responses to formant frequencies spanning the 100-Hz range from 2000 to 2100 Hz and, for BF-matched stimuli, the 100-Hz range starting at the highest harmonic frequency below BF. ROC analysis computes the performance with which two stimuli can be classified based on a single observation of the response variable (average rate or synchronized rate), and hence provides a convenient framework for comparison to behavioral data.…”

Section: Formant Discrimination Thresholds Of Individual Recording Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Midbrain Synchrony to Envelope Structure Supports Behavioral Sensitivity to Single-Formant Vowel-Like Sounds in Noise

Henry

Abrams

Forst

et al. 2016

JARO

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Vowels make a strong contribution to speech perception under natural conditions. Vowels are encoded in the auditory nerve primarily through neural synchrony to temporal fine structure and to envelope fluctuations rather than through average discharge rate. Neural synchrony is thought to contribute less to vowel coding in central auditory nuclei, consistent with more limited synchronization to fine structure and the emergence of average-rate coding of envelope fluctuations. However, this hypothesis is largely unexplored, especially in background noise. The present study examined coding mechanisms at the level of the midbrain that support behavioral sensitivity to simple vowel-like sounds using neurophysiological recordings and matched behavioral experiments in the budgerigar. Stimuli were harmonic tone complexes with energy concentrated at one spectral peak, or formant frequency, presented in quiet and in noise. Behavioral thresholds for formant-frequency discrimination decreased with increasing amplitude of stimulus envelope fluctuations, increased in noise, and were similar between budgerigars and humans. Multiunit recordings in awake birds showed that the midbrain encodes vowel-like sounds both through response synchrony to envelope structure and through average rate. Whereas neural discrimination thresholds based on either coding scheme were sufficient to support behavioral thresholds in quiet, only synchrony-based neural thresholds could account for behavioral thresholds in background noise. These results reveal an incomplete transformation to average-rate coding of vowel-like sounds in the midbrain. Model simulations suggest that this transformation emerges due to modulation tuning, which is shared between birds and mammals. Furthermore, the results underscore the behavioral relevance of envelope synchrony in the midbrain for detection of small differences in vowel formant frequency under real-world listening conditions.

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Factors affecting masking release for speech in modulated noise for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

Cited by 165 publications

References 78 publications

Factors affecting the development of speech recognition in steady and modulated noise

Factors affecting the development of speech recognition in steady and modulated noise

Exploring Cognitive Spare Capacity : Executive Processing of Degraded Speech

Midbrain Synchrony to Envelope Structure Supports Behavioral Sensitivity to Single-Formant Vowel-Like Sounds in Noise

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