Spectrotemporal modulation sensitivity for hearing-impaired listeners: Dependence on carrier center frequency and the relationship to speech intelligibility

Golbarg Mehraei, Frederick J. Gallun, Marjorie R. Leek, Joshua G.W. Bernstein

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Poor speech understanding in noise by hearing-impaired (HI) listeners is only partly explained by elevated audiometric thresholds. Suprathreshold- processing impairments such as reduced temporal or spectral resolution or temporal fine-structure (TFS) processing ability might also contribute. Although speech contains dynamic combinations of temporal and spectral modulation and TFS content, these capabilities are often treated separately. Modulation-depth detection thresholds for spectrotemporal modulation (STM) applied to octave-band noise were measured for normal-hearing and HI listeners as a function of temporal modulation rate (4-32 Hz), spectral ripple density [0.5-4 cycles/octave (c/o)] and carrier center frequency (500-4000 Hz). STM sensitivity was worse than normal for HI listeners only for a low-frequency carrier (1000 Hz) at low temporal modulation rates (4-12 Hz) and a spectral ripple density of 2 c/o, and for a high-frequency carrier (4000 Hz) at a high spectral ripple density (4 c/o). STM sensitivity for the 4-Hz, 4-c/o condition for a 4000-Hz carrier and for the 4-Hz, 2-c/o condition for a 1000-Hz carrier were correlated with speech-recognition performance in noise after partialling out the audiogram-based speech-intelligibility index. Poor speech-reception and STM-detection performance for HI listeners may be related to a combination of reduced frequency selectivity and a TFS-processing deficit limiting the ability to track spectral-peak movements.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)301-316
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume136
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2014
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Spectrotemporal modulation sensitivity for hearing-impaired listeners: Dependence on carrier center frequency and the relationship to speech intelligibility'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this