Comparing behavioral and physiological measures of combination tones: Sex and race differences

Abstract

Both distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) and performance in an auditory-masking task involving combination tones were measured in the same frequency region in the same ears. In the behavioral task, a signal of 3.6 kHz (duration 300 ms, rise/fall time 20 ms) was masked by a 3.0-kHz tone (62 dB SPL, continuously presented). These two frequencies can produce a combination tone at 2.4 kHz. When a narrowband noise (2.0-2.8 kHz, 17 dB spectrum level) was added as a second masker, detection of the 3.6-kHz signal worsened by 6-9 dB (the Greenwood effect), revealing that listeners had been using the combination tone at 2.4 kHz as a cue for detection at 3.6 kHz. Several outcomes differed markedly by sex and racial background. The Greenwood effect was substantially larger in females than in males, but only for the White group. When the magnitude of the Greenwood effect was compared with the magnitude of the DPOAE measured in the 2.4 kHz region, the correlations typically were modest, but were high for Non-White males. For many subjects, then, most of the DPOAE measured in the ear canal apparently is not related to the combination-tone cue that is masked by the narrowband noise.

Differences in common psychoacoustical tasks by sex, menstrual cycle, and race

“…From the outset, the study was designed to measure sex differences in both the psychoacoustical tasks and the physiological measures, and, for the female subjects, also to measure any differences across the menstrual cycle. As noted above, after all the data were collected, we noticed some unanticipated race/ethnic effects (McFadden et al, 2012b), so that variable is included in the analyses here. Because racial background was not systematically considered during recruitment, all outcomes relevant to that variable must be viewed as highly tentative.…”

“…(Overshoot is the difference in detectability of a brief tonal signal when its onset occurs soon after the onset of a wideband masker versus later in its time course; two-tone suppression is the difference in forward masking for a brief tone masked only by another tone of the same frequency versus masked by that tone plus another tone slightly higher in frequency.) By contrast, males are reported to be better than females at frequency discrimination and loudness discrimination (Rammsayer and Troche, 2012), at sound localization (reviewed by McFadden, 1998;Z€ undorf et al, 2011), at using an off-frequency cue in a simultaneous tone-on-tone masking task (the Greenwood effect; see McFadden et al, 2012b), and at detecting a tonal signal in the presence of a wideband masker whose frequency content varies from presentation to presentation (called profile analysis; see Neff et al, 1996). It is not clear what factor(s) links these psychoacoustical tasks, but some of these previously studied tasks are among the seven studied for this report.…”

Relationships between otoacoustic emissions and a proxy measure of cochlear length derived from the auditory brainstem response

“…Our standard procedure when collecting DPOAE data (see McFadden et al, 2012) is to step a pair of equal-level primary tones over a range of frequencies (with the ratio of the primaries fixed at 1.21), obtain an input/output function at each of six frequency steps, and then create a composite input/output function using the median DPOAE level at each primary-tone level tested (as a way to reduce the effects of microstructure on our estimate of DPOAE strength over that range of primary frequencies). The composite function is fitted with a straight line over its linear range, and the primary level necessary to produce a DPOAE equal to −5 dB SPL is determined from the fitted line.…”

Predicting the Risk of Hearing Impairment Following the Cervical Spine Diseases by Measuring the Cervical Range of Movements: A Pilot Study

“…It has been shown that women had more favorable hearing threshold than men, and their right ears hearing responses were better than those of the left ears ( McFadden, 2009 ; McFadden, Pasanen, Leshikar, Hsieh, & Maloney, 2012 ). The present study showed a higher level of hearing loss in men, as the level of hearing loss in the left ear was higher than that in the right ear, and in case of any limitation at cervical movements, the level of hearing loss in the left ear was higher than that in the right ear ( Table 1 ).…”