A Method for Evaluating Temporal, Spectral and Combined Temporal-Spectral Resolution of Hearing

Abstract

A method for evaluating the spectral, temporal and combined spectral temporal resolution of hearing is presented; it was used to obtain masked hearing thresholds using the fixed frequency Békéy technique. The masking noise was a broadband random noise with a 3 dB/octave roll off (pink noise). Spectral resolution was assessed by introducing a spectral gap in the masking noise centered at the test tone frequency. Temporal resolution was assessed by introducing temporal gaps, the centre of which coincided in time with the centre of the test tone-pulses. The spectral and temporal gaps were used either separately or simultaneously. Release of masking values were calculated from masked hearing thresholds. One test group comprised 16 normal-hearing subjects, a second group 16 elderly (age 55-75 years) subjects with normal hearing for their age. Temporal gaps were 20, 50 and 100 ms long. Spectral gaps had a bandwidth of 1/10, 1/3, and 1 octave. Each gap or combination of gaps was tested at the frequencies 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz. Release of masking increased with increasing temporal or spectral gaps. If a temporal gap and a spectral gap were combined, the release of masking increased further. Maximum release of masking was obtained with the 100 ms temporal gap combined with the 1 octave notch filter. The overall difference in release of masking between the young and elderly normal-hearing group was 2 dB.

Speech-in-Speech Listening on the LiSN-S Test by Older Adults With Good Audiograms Depends on Cognition and Hearing Acuity at High Frequencies

“…Overall, the results of the present study for both the age groups agree with those of the previous studies for the TiNG (Larsby & Arlinger 1998;van Esch & Dreschler 2011), F 0 DL (Vongpaisal & Pichora-Fuller 2007), Gap SU (Pichora-Fuller et al 2006), and TFS ║ (Hopkins & Moore 2011) tests.…”

“…Auditory temporal resolution was measured with a test for tone-detection thresholds in noise gaps based on the procedure used by Larsby and Arlinger (1998). Auditory temporal resolution was measured with a test for tone-detection thresholds in noise gaps based on the procedure used by Larsby and Arlinger (1998).…”

Measuring Temporal Resolution (Release of Masking) with a Hughson-Westlake Up-Down Instead of a Békèsy-Tracking Procedure

“…Both methods indicated a significantly better temporal resolution (i.e., higher RoM values) for NH than for HI listeners. This is in line with previous research from Zwicker and Schorn, 1982;Ludvigsen, 1985;Schorn and Zwicker, 1990;Larsby and Arlinger, 1998;Larsby and Arlinger, 1999;and van Esch and Dreschler, 2011. Furthermore, the difference in temporal resolution at low and high frequencies has been reported previously (Larsby and Arlinger, 1999;van Esch and Dreschler, 2011).…”

Evaluation of the preliminary auditory profile test battery in an international multi-centre study

“…This complicates absolute comparisons with previous studies (Larsby & Arlinger, 1998, 1999Van Esch & Dreschler, 2011). Nevertheless, the spectral-resolution results are comparable.…”

“…To assess spectral resolution, a 0.5-octave spectral gap, centred at the test-tone frequency, was cut in the octave-band noise, but not in the noise fl oor (see Figure 1D). As designed by Larsby & Arlinger (1998, 1999, masked thresholds were measured using a fast B é k è sy tracking procedure with fi xed noise level (MCL at corresponding frequency): the level of the tone was varied according to the listener ' s responses. The result of a run was calculated as the average value of six upper and lower reversals after two initial turning points.…”