Speech audibility experiments can control for individual audiograms by band-specific spectral shaping

Evidence

In the second experiment the spectrum of the target sentences was adjusted on a frequency band-by-band basis to account for differences in the audiogram across participants. The initial level was set to that of the high SL condition of the first experiment for a listener with 0 dB HL. Target and masking sentences were then filtered into six component waveforms using two-octave-wide bandpass filters with center frequencies of 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz. The level of each component was adjusted based on the difference between the audiogram of the listener being tested and the audiogram of a comparison listener with 0 dB HL thresholds at each of the six octave frequencies, and then the six waveforms were summed. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1730

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The band-by-band spectral compensation method parallels how hearing-aid fitting targets (e.g., NAL-NL2) shape gain per frequency band to audiogram contours.

Related

• Spectrally shaped targets can equalize audibility across listeners with differing audiograms. (similarity 0.88)
• Sensation level and per-band audiogram equalization are distinct ways to control audibility (similarity 0.88)
• Hearing-loss compensation boosts stimulus level 15 dB above threshold per band (similarity 0.83)
• Hearing-loss compensation for stimuli is capped beyond 9 kHz due to audiogram limits (similarity 0.83)
• Compensating hearing-impaired listeners relies on incomplete audiogram data at extreme frequencies (similarity 0.81)
• Audibility is the greatest factor in hearing-loss communication difficulty (similarity 0.81)
• Fixed presentation levels overestimate hearing-loss effects that sensation-level compensation removes (similarity 0.80)
• Added masking noise prevents off-frequency cues in hearing experiments (similarity 0.80)
• The auditory system highlights spectral changes to help listeners compare sounds (similarity 0.80)
• Inhibitory networks that sharpen spectral peaks can aid listeners with reduced frequency selectivity (similarity 0.79)
• Hearing aid gain is capped by loudness discomfort before full audibility restoration is achieved. (similarity 0.79)
• Amplification only compensates for elevated thresholds, not other perceptual deficits from hearing loss. (similarity 0.79)
• Simultaneous-masking filters may understate the ear’s true spectral resolution (similarity 0.79)
• Hearing aids normalize affect ratings across differing hearing loss severities (similarity 0.79)
• Speech intelligibility at the perceptual boundary is titrated per subject by vocoding band count. (similarity 0.79)