Reduced frequency selectivity hurts speech perception less than reduced audibility does

Evidence

Many stimuli in the environment contain relatively small spectral contrasts, and this illustration of the excitation pattern suggests that reduced frequency selectivity can have a real impact on the perception of sounds in our environment. Further, even small reductions of spectral contrast may be problematic when stimuli are masked. Thus, reduced frequency selectivity by listeners with sensorineural hearing loss is generally considered to translate into difficulties understanding both speech in quiet and speech in noise, as demonstrated by Baer and Moore (1993). They showed that simulated reduced frequency selectivity negatively impacted speech perception in noise. However, while reduced frequency selectivity is a clear problem for listeners with hearing loss, it is much less important to speech perception than the reduction in audibility caused by their hearing loss (Humes & Roberts, 1990). — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 575

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to audiology’s classic audibility-vs-distortion debate over how much of hearing-impaired speech difficulty is remedied by amplification alone. — connects to: Speech discrimination requires intact frequency resolution; Hearing loss impairs frequency selectivity beyond what stimulus level differences explain. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 558; Reduced target audibility, not spatial processing loss, explains much of the hearing-loss speech deficit — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1719 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 575

Broader Connections

• Reduced target audibility, not spatial processing loss, explains much of the hearing-loss speech deficit #corroborates (0.82) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1719