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Psychometric functions for sentence recognition in sinusoidally amplitude-modulated noises
Yi Shen1, Nicole K Manzano2, Virginia M Richards2
1Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 200 S Jordan Avenue, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7000, USA.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|January 3, 2016
Summary
Listeners better understand speech masked by fluctuating sounds, suggesting "dip-listening" aids hearing. This study explored how masker modulation affects speech intelligibility and auditory temporal processing.
Area of Science:
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Psychoacoustics
- Speech Processing
Background:
- Speech reception improves with modulated maskers over unmodulated ones at equal levels.
- The
- dip-listening
- hypothesis suggests listeners use masker quiet periods to extract speech.
- Auditory system's temporal processing capabilities are crucial for understanding speech in noise.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the contribution of
- dip-listening
- to speech intelligibility in modulated maskers.
- To examine how different modulation rates affect speech reception thresholds.
- To compare speech intelligibility benefits with auditory temporal acuity.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Estimated speech intelligibility psychometric functions using modulated and unmodulated speech-shaped noise maskers.
- Experiment 2: Measured tone pip detection thresholds at masker dips.
- Tested modulation rates from 1 to 64 Hz.
Main Results:
- Speech intelligibility showed nonmonotonicity with modulation rate, peaking near 16 Hz.
- Psychometric function slopes were shallower at lower modulation rates.
- Tone pip detection thresholds increased monotonically with modulation rate.
Conclusions:
- The benefits of speech reception in fluctuating maskers exceed simple temporal acuity.
- Dip-listening
- strategies play a significant role, but are not the sole factor.
- Auditory system's ability to exploit masker
- dips
- is complex and rate-dependent.
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