Narrowband masking and differential metrics can isolate temporal coding deficits from filter width

Evidence

Because AM detection thresholds did not correlate to hearing threshold measures and reflected interactions between temporal coding fidelity and cochlear gain, it is informative to use differential metrics to tease apart different subcomponents of sensorineural hearing loss. Adding a fixed-level broadband noise masker is expected to impact AM detection performance in two ways: (i) wider auditory filters would pass through more noise and degrade performance accordingly, and (ii) AM information within the auditory filter would be more noisy in each coding channel (e.g., in each auditory nerve fiber), such that a sufficient number of AN fibers needs to be present to perform well in the task. Because the bandwidth of the NB masker fell within an ERB, this condition was expected to be more detrimental to listeners that suffer from reduced temporal coding fidelity irrespective of the width of their auditory filters. An important third factor that could influence all the psychoacoustic results is the individual amount of cochlear compression that is present at the tested frequency. Because cochlear compression loss would enhance perceived modulation depth both in the quiet and noise masking conditions, it was assumed that the differential metric would be able to parse out this effect. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5905

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: ERB (equivalent rectangular bandwidth) and cochlear compression explained as they bear on the experimental design.

Related

• Noise-masking conditions can selectively tax temporal coding fidelity independent of auditory filter width. (similarity 0.95)
• More cochlear compression loss predicts less degradation from added masking noise (similarity 0.93)
• Broadband masking can compare filter-widening harm against temporal-coding harm (similarity 0.90)
• Quiet-versus-narrowband-masked AM threshold differences can isolate temporal coding from cochlear compression (similarity 0.90)
• Cochlear compression loss paradoxically enhances perceived modulation depth (similarity 0.89)
• Narrowband noise disrupts amplitude modulation detection in cochlear neuropathy more than broadband noise does. (similarity 0.87)
• Narrowband noise masks AM detection most in listeners with the poorest cochlear gain measures. (similarity 0.86)
• Cochlear compression protects modulation detection from masking noise (similarity 0.86)
• Cochlear gain loss may paradoxically enhance modulation sensitivity in broadband noise (similarity 0.86)
• Differential metrics can separate cochlear gain loss from temporal coding deficits in hearing loss (similarity 0.86)
• A narrowband masker selectively taxes temporal coding in hearing-impaired listeners (similarity 0.86)
• Narrowband noise degrades AM detection mainly in listeners with reduced temporal coding (similarity 0.86)
• Narrowband noise masking disproportionately impairs hearing-impaired listeners’ amplitude modulation detection (similarity 0.85)
• Cochlear gain loss can compensate for temporal coding deficits in AM detection (similarity 0.85)
• Gain loss boosts modulation sensitivity in noise despite reduced temporal coding (similarity 0.84)