Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Elliott Hall, 75 East River Parkway, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2018 Feb;143(2):901. doi: 10.1121/1.5023687.
Auditory enhancement, where a target sound within a masker is rendered more audible by the prior presentation of the masker alone, may play an important role in auditory perception under variable everyday acoustic conditions. Cochlear hearing loss may reduce enhancement effects, potentially contributing to the difficulties experienced by hearing-impaired (HI) individuals in noisy and reverberant environments. However, it remains unknown whether, and by how much, enhancement under simultaneous masking is reduced in HI listeners. Enhancement of a pure tone under simultaneous masking with a multi-tone masker was measured in HI listeners and age-matched normal-hearing (NH) listeners as function of the spectral notch width of the masker, using stimuli at equal sensation levels as well as at equal sound pressure levels, but with the stimuli presented in noise to the NH listeners to maintain the equal sensation level between listener groups. The results showed that HI listeners exhibited some enhancement in all conditions. However, even when conditions were made as comparable as possible, in terms of effective spectral notch width and presentation level, the enhancement effect in HI listeners under simultaneous masking was reduced relative to that observed in NH listeners.
听觉增强，即在掩蔽器中呈现掩蔽器本身会使目标声音更加明显，这可能在各种日常声学条件下的听觉感知中发挥重要作用。耳蜗听力损失可能会降低增强效果，这可能导致听力受损（HI）个体在嘈杂和混响环境中遇到困难。然而，目前尚不清楚在同时掩蔽下的增强是否以及在多大程度上降低了 HI 听众的增强效果。使用与等感觉水平以及等声压水平相同的刺激，但向 NH 听众在噪声中呈现刺激以保持听众组之间的等感觉水平，测量了 HI 听众和年龄匹配的正常听力（NH）听众在多频掩蔽器同时掩蔽下的纯音增强，作为掩蔽器的频谱凹口宽度的函数。结果表明，HI 听众在所有条件下都表现出一定程度的增强。然而，即使在有效频谱凹口宽度和呈现水平方面尽可能地使条件具有可比性，在同时掩蔽下 HI 听众的增强效果也低于 NH 听众观察到的增强效果。
