Masking grows slower in compressive than non-compressive auditory systems, generalizing to speech

Evidence

It is assumed that forward masking occurs during auditory neural processing, and that it operates on peripheral auditory output (i.e. neural firing in the auditory nerve). Since the compression component of the peripheral processing is normal in both the 80 year 100 % condition and the NH ‑30 dB condition, the level difference between syllable 2 and syllables 1 and 3 should be comparable in the peripheral output of any specific condition. In this case, ΔSRT provides a measure of the more central masking that occurs during neural processing. When the compression is cancelled, the level difference in the peripheral output for syllable 2 is greater in the dip conditions. If the central masking is constant, independent of the auditory representation, the reduction of the output level for syllable 2 should be reflected in the amount of masking, i.e. ΔSRT. This is like the description of the growth of masking by Moore ( 2012 ), where the growth of masking in a compressive system is observed to be slower than in a non-compressive system. Moore was describing experiments where both the signal and the masker were isolated sinusoids. The results of the current study show that the effect generalizes to speech perception where both the target and the interference are broadband, time-vary sounds. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4089

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing knowledge of forward masking and the Moore (2012) model of masking growth; ties peripheral compression to central masking within the reader’s physiology/psychoacoustics focus. — connects to: Speech intelligibility gains more from reducing masker energy than from increasing target energy; Lost cochlear compression degrades speech formant coding in hearing-impaired listeners
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4089