TY - JOUR
T1 - Phoneme recognition in modulated maskers by normal-hearing and aided hearing-impaired listeners
AU - Phatak, Sandeep A.
AU - Grant, Ken W.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Mary Cord and Jennie Canan for audiometric screenings. John Galvin from the House Ear Institute provided original recordings of vowel stimuli. We are grateful to Christian Lorenzi and Peggy Nelson for sharing their data. Sincere thanks to Emily Buss and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. This research was supported by Cooperative Research and Development Agreements between the Clinical Investigation Regulatory Office, U.S. Army Medical Department and School, and the Oticon Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark. The views presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Army, Navy, or Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. 1
PY - 2012/9
Y1 - 2012/9
N2 - This study measured the influence of masker fluctuations on phoneme recognition. The first part of the study compared the benefit of masker modulations for consonant and vowel recognition in normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Recognition scores were measured in steady-state and sinusoidally amplitude-modulated noise maskers (100 modulation depth) at several modulation rates and signal-to-noise ratios. Masker modulation rates were 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz for the consonant recognition task and 2, 4, 12, and 32 Hz for the vowel recognition task. Vowel recognition scores showed more modulation benefit and a more pronounced effect of masker modulation rate than consonant scores. The modulation benefit for word recognition from other studies was found to be more similar to the benefit for vowel recognition than that for consonant recognition. The second part of the study measured the effect of modulation rate on the benefit of masker modulations for vowel recognition in aided hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. HI listeners achieved as much modulation benefit as NH listeners for slower masker modulation rates (2, 4, and 12 Hz), but showed a reduced benefit for the fast masker modulation rate of 32 Hz.
AB - This study measured the influence of masker fluctuations on phoneme recognition. The first part of the study compared the benefit of masker modulations for consonant and vowel recognition in normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Recognition scores were measured in steady-state and sinusoidally amplitude-modulated noise maskers (100 modulation depth) at several modulation rates and signal-to-noise ratios. Masker modulation rates were 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz for the consonant recognition task and 2, 4, 12, and 32 Hz for the vowel recognition task. Vowel recognition scores showed more modulation benefit and a more pronounced effect of masker modulation rate than consonant scores. The modulation benefit for word recognition from other studies was found to be more similar to the benefit for vowel recognition than that for consonant recognition. The second part of the study measured the effect of modulation rate on the benefit of masker modulations for vowel recognition in aided hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. HI listeners achieved as much modulation benefit as NH listeners for slower masker modulation rates (2, 4, and 12 Hz), but showed a reduced benefit for the fast masker modulation rate of 32 Hz.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866290653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1121/1.4742718
DO - 10.1121/1.4742718
M3 - Article
C2 - 22978893
AN - SCOPUS:84866290653
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 132
SP - 1646
EP - 1654
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 3
ER -