Both spectral sparsity and lack of fluctuations in a masker release speech from masking

Evidence

When the noise masker is replaced by 16 pure tones (PT; open circles), performance is markedly better—all three groups show a large improvement in performance, although there appears to be a systematic decrease in performance from young NH to age-matched NH to the HI group. Imposing noise envelope fluctuations to the pure-tone maskers (MT; filled circles) results in a small reduction in performance for all three groups. It appears that both the spectral sparsity of the tonal maskers (PT and MT), as well as the lack of fluctuations (PT), contributes to the release from masking relative to the GN condition. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2188

Imposing noise envelope fluctuations to the pure-tone maskers (MT; filled circles) results in a small reduction in performance for all three groups. It appears that both the spectral sparsity of the tonal maskers (PT and MT), as well as the lack of fluctuations (PT), contributes to the release from masking relative to the GN condition. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2186

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on release from masking via dip-listening and comodulation masking release in fluctuating noise. — connects to: Masking depends on stimulus fluctuations in ways steady-state models cannot predict.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2188; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2186