Raising presentation level reduces the masking-release advantage from spectrally sparse or unmodulated maskers

Evidence

The results using 85-dB SPL speech for all listeners are shown in Fig. 4 . Only three speech-to-masker ratios (‑5, 0, and 5 dB) were tested in this part of the experiment. The relevant data from the HI listeners are simply replotted from Fig. 3 . Performance was generally worse overall for both the young and age-matched NH listeners, compared to results at the lower sound level. In addition, the difference between the PT and MT conditions was reduced. This reduction was observed even in the non-vocoded conditions, but was particularly apparent in the vocoded conditions. In fact, in the vocoded conditions, the differences between the NH groups and the HI group were relatively small. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2186

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Raising overall sound level sharply reduces the benefit of steady over fluctuating tonal maskers. (similarity 0.90)
• Raising speech to equal 85 dB SPL reduces normal listeners’ masking release benefit (similarity 0.88)
• Both spectral sparsity and lack of fluctuations in a masker release speech from masking (similarity 0.88)
• High speech level worsens NH performance and shrinks PT-MT masker differences (similarity 0.86)
• Listener age worsens masked speech recognition even with equal sensation levels (similarity 0.86)
• Raising speech level reduces the advantage from masker fluctuation absence (similarity 0.86)
• Removing low frequencies from a masker progressively improves speech reception up to a ceiling (similarity 0.85)
• Presenting speech at the same loudness minimizes forward-masking differences (similarity 0.85)
• Masking depends on stimulus fluctuations in ways steady-state models cannot predict. (similarity 0.85)
• Hearing-impaired listeners derive less benefit from steady tonal maskers once spectral resolution is limited. (similarity 0.84)
• Removing low-frequency masker energy improves speech intelligibility by 0.65 dB per dB (similarity 0.84)
• Beyond threshold, masker and signal levels rise one-for-one in decibels (similarity 0.84)
• Both spectral sparsity and lack of masker fluctuations contribute to release from masking. (similarity 0.84)
• Two equal-level talkers yield a global SNR about 11 dB below each single masker (similarity 0.84)
• Masking release differences shrink when normal listeners are tested at matched sensation level (similarity 0.84)