Self-masking: Listening during vocalization. Normal hearing

What underlying mechanisms are involved in the ability to talk and listen simultaneously and what role does self-masking play under conditions of hearing impairment? The purpose of the present series of studies is to describe a technique for assessment of masked thresholds during vocalization, to describe normative data for males and females, and to focus on hearing impairment. The masking effect of vocalized [a:] on narrow-band noise pulses (250-8000 Hz) was studied using the maximum vocalization method. An amplitude-modulated series of sound pulses, which sounded like a steam engine, was masked until the criterion of halving the perceived pulse rate was reached. For masking of continuous reading, a just-follow-conversation criterion was applied. Intra-session test-retest reproducibility and inter-session variability were calculated. The results showed that female voices were more efficient in masking high frequency noise bursts than male voices and more efficient in masking both a male and a female test reading. The male had to vocalize 4 dBA louder than the female to produce the same masking effect on the test reading. It is concluded that the method is relatively simple to apply and has small intra-session and fair inter-session variability. Interesting gender differences were observed.