Leek M R, Summers V
Army Audiology and Speech Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC 20307-5001, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2001 Jun;109(6):2944-54. doi: 10.1121/1.1371761.
Reports using a variety of psychophysical tasks indicate that pitch perception by hearing-impaired listeners may be abnormal, contributing to difficulties in understanding speech and enjoying music. Pitches of complex sounds may be weaker and more indistinct in the presence of cochlear damage, especially when frequency regions are affected that form the strongest basis for pitch perception in normal-hearing listeners. In this study, the strength of the complex pitch generated by iterated rippled noise was assessed in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Pitch strength was measured for broadband noises with spectral ripples generated by iteratively delaying a copy of a given noise and adding it back into the original. Octave-band-pass versions of these noises also were evaluated to assess frequency dominance regions for rippled-noise pitch. Hearing-impaired listeners demonstrated consistently weaker pitches in response to the rippled noises relative to pitch strength in normal-hearing listeners. However, in most cases, the frequency regions of pitch dominance, i.e., strongest pitch, were similar to those observed in normal-hearing listeners. Except where there exists a substantial sensitivity loss, contributions from normal pitch dominance regions associated with the strongest pitches may not be directly related to impaired spectral processing. It is suggested that the reduced strength of rippled-noise pitch in listeners with hearing loss results from impaired frequency resolution and possibly an associated deficit in temporal processing.
使用各种心理物理学任务的报告表明，听力受损的听众对音高的感知可能不正常，这导致他们在理解语音和欣赏音乐方面存在困难。在存在耳蜗损伤的情况下，复杂声音的音高可能会更弱且更不清晰，尤其是当构成正常听力听众音高感知最强基础的频率区域受到影响时。在这项研究中，评估了正常听力和听力受损的听众对迭代波纹噪声产生的复杂音高的强度。通过迭代延迟给定噪声的副本并将其添加回原始噪声来生成具有频谱波纹的宽带噪声，测量其音高强度。还评估了这些噪声的倍频程带通版本，以评估波纹噪声音高的频率主导区域。与正常听力的听众相比，听力受损的听众对波纹噪声的音高反应始终较弱。然而，在大多数情况下，音高主导的频率区域，即最强音高，与正常听力的听众中观察到的相似。除非存在严重的灵敏度损失，与最强音高相关的正常音高主导区域的贡献可能与受损的频谱处理没有直接关系。有人认为，听力损失听众中波纹噪声音高强度降低是由于频率分辨率受损以及可能相关的时间处理缺陷所致。
