The effect of perceived spatial separation on informational masking of Chinese speech

An analysis of the masking of speech by competing speech using self-report data

“…But such also is the power of the questionnaire: one can describe quickly and effectively a situation that many people would recognize and understand, and so obtain data on larger, more representative samples of people than would normally be possible experimentally. To distinguish informational masking from energetic masking, it is perhaps necessary to return to laboratory situations, but it is not clear which simple laboratory experiments would best reflect the extent of the role of informational masking in everyday listening situations, especially as different laboratory measures lead to vastly different estimates of informational masking ͑compare Arbogast et al, 2002;Wu et al, 2004͒. Some of the vignettes in the questionnaire parallel laboratory experiments on informational masking, such as those comparing single-talker maskers with multitalker maskers ͑Carhart et al., 1975; In the current analysis, listeners reported more difficulty understanding one of many talkers than one of two talkers. This could be either a reflection of the expected extra difficulty when the number of maskers are increased or a reflection of the extra total power of the maskers when there are more talkers.…”

Precedence-effect-induced enhancement of prepulse inhibition in socially reared but not isolation-reared rats

“…Huang et al, 2008;L. Li et al, 2004;Rakerd et al, 2006;Wu et al, 2005). Moreover, the unmasking effect of perceived spatial separation depends on the masker type.…”

“…When the masker is steady state speech spectrum noise, which induces energetic masking of target speech, the perceived spatial separation produces a smaller (but significant) release of target speech from masking (Freyman et al, 1999;L. Li et al, 2004;Wu et al, 2005; for the concept of energetic masking, see a recent review by Schneider, Li, & Daneman, 2007). When the masker is disruptive speech, which induces both energetic and informational masking of target speech, the perceived spatial separation produces a marked release of target speech from masking (Freyman et al, 1999;L.…”

“…When the masker is disruptive speech, which induces both energetic and informational masking of target speech, the perceived spatial separation produces a marked release of target speech from masking (Freyman et al, 1999;L. Li et al, 2004;Wu et al, 2005; for the concept of informational masking, see the review by Schneider et al, 2007). Thus, perceived spatial separation between the signal and masker, which does not substantially change the SNR at the listener's ear, reduces both informational masking and energetic masking with different extents.…”

“…Huang et al, 2008;L. Li, Daneman, Qi, & Schneider, 2004;Rakerd, Aaronson, & Hartmann, 2006;Wu et al, 2005). For example, on the basis of the principle of the precedence effect, when both the target speech and the masker (either speech masker or noise masker) are presented by a loudspeaker to the listener's left and by another loudspeaker to the listener's right, the perceived location of the target and that of the masker can be manipulated by changing the delay between the two loudspeakers for the target signal and the masker signal (L. Li et al, 2004).…”