Reduced frequency selectivity partly explains diminished sensitivity to inherent masker fluctuations

Evidence

In contrast, it was found that CI users showed no difference in speech intelligibility between maskers with and without inherent envelope fluctuations. Here, these initial findings in CI users were extended to listeners with cochlear hearing loss and the results were compared with those from normal-hearing listeners at either equal sensation level or equal sound pressure level. The results from hearing-impaired listeners (and in normal-hearing listeners at high sound levels) are consistent with a relative reduction in low-frequency inherent noise fluctuations due to broader cochlear filtering. The reduced effect of inherent temporal fluctuations in noise, due to either current spread (in CI users) or broader cochlear filters (in hearing-impaired listeners), provides a new way to explain the loss of masking release experienced in CI users and hearing-impaired listeners when additional amplitude fluctuations are introduced in noise maskers. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2161 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reducing audible fluctuations in a masker lowers post-masked thresholds by up to 24 dB — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 570; Intrinsic noise amplitude fluctuation masks detection of imposed amplitude modulation; Broader cochlear filtering reduces low-frequency noise fluctuations, explaining lost masking release — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2161 (+2 more)

Related

• Wider peripheral tuning from hearing loss suppresses low-frequency fluctuation amplitude (similarity 0.94)
• Broader cochlear filtering reduces low-frequency noise fluctuations, explaining lost masking release (similarity 0.94)
• The speech-masking potency of inherent noise fluctuations depends on listener frequency selectivity and level (similarity 0.94)
• Hearing-impaired listeners retain partial sensitivity to inherent noise fluctuations, unlike CI users (similarity 0.93)
• Cochlear-implant users show no sensitivity to inherent noise envelope fluctuations (similarity 0.92)
• Variable-frequency experiments reveal frequency effects that fixed-frequency masking hides. (similarity 0.91)
• Reducing audible fluctuations in a masker lowers post-masked thresholds by up to 24 dB (similarity 0.90)
• Frequency-specific hearing loss drives multi-band hearing aid processing (similarity 0.89)
• Fluctuating maskers produce masking release that Fletcher’s power spectrum model cannot explain. (similarity 0.88)
• Inherent noise fluctuations do not universally limit speech perception across hearing conditions (similarity 0.87)
• Hearing-impaired listeners benefit less from masker fluctuation when spectral resolution is degraded (similarity 0.87)
• Masking depends on stimulus fluctuations in ways steady-state models cannot predict. (similarity 0.86)
• Low-frequency maskers mask high-frequency signals more than the reverse, and this worsens with intensity. (similarity 0.86)
• Frequency selectivity in normal-hearing listeners worsens at high sound levels (similarity 0.86)
• Cochlear frequency selectivity decreases as sound level increases (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Broader cochlear filtering reduces low-frequency noise fluctuations, explaining lost masking release #corroborates (0.92) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2161