Modulation transfer functions: a comparison of the results of three methods

Modulation transfer functions (MTFs) were measured with three different psychoacoustical paradigms in the same normal-hearing subjects. In the temporal-probe method, the threshold of a 4-ms probe tone (frequencies of 1000 and 4000 Hz) was measured at various envelope phases within a 100% sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) noise at modulation frequencies from 2 to 256 Hz. For the derived-MTF method, the threshold of a 500-ms tone at 1000 and 4000 Hz was measured in the same noise at the same modulation frequencies. For the modulation-detection paradigm, modulation thresholds were measured as a function of modulation frequency for bandpass filtered SAM noise centered at 1000 and 4000 Hz. MTFs with lowpass shapes were observed with all three methods. Differences were observed in the cutoff frequencies and/or attenuation rates when the data were fitted with lowpass filter transfer functions. Factors influencing those differences are discussed.