Effect of Noise at One Ear on the Detection of Signals at the Other Ear

Mulligan, B. E.; Wilbanks, W. A.

doi:10.1121/1.1939407

Cited by 7 publications

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“…The purpose of the experiment reported here was to determine the intensity at which this occurred, and to establish the form of the function relating the magnitude of the MLD to the noise level in the ear with the less intense noise. Blodgett, Jeffress, and Whitworth (1962), Mulligan and Wilbanks (1965), Weston and Miller (1965), Egan (1965), Dolan (1966), and Dolan and Robinson (1967) have published data relevant to this weakness of the Jeffress model. All of these investigators used conditions of binaural noise and monaural signal (e.g., N0-Sm, N•r-Sm) and varied the spectrum level of the nonsignal ear.…”

Section: Figure L(a) Is a Vector Construction Representing An Instantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masking-Level Differences Determined with and without Interaural Disparities in Masker Intensity

McFadden

1968

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Psychometric functions were obtained for three listeners for the interaural conditions Nm-Sm and N0-Sa' using seven different noise spectrum levels. In addition, data were collected on the N0-S,r condition with the spectrum level in one ear smaller than that in the other ear. In these N0•-S,/conditions, the signal-tonoise ratio was kept equal in the two ears. The masking-level differences (MLD's) for the N0-S,r conditions declined gradually as the level of the noise was reduced, and for small spectrum levels, they were essentially the same as the MLD obtained when the masker was turned off. The MLD's declined more rapidly for the N0'-S,r • conditions, but a small MLD was obtained even when the spectrum level in one ear was 60 dB smaller than that in the other ear. For the Nm-Sm conditions, masking increased linearly with increases in spectrum level, but for N0-S,r, the relation was not linear--a further indication that the basis for detection is different in MLD and non-MLD conditions. The results are discussed in terms of "internal noise," the effect of which is to alter the effective interaural correlation as the masker level is reduced. Signal: 400 cps, 250 msec; masker: continuous, wide-band noise; method: two-interval forced choice. the signal is presumed to be greater, on the average, than it is on those trials or observation intervals containing noise-alone, and the listener presumably makes his decisions accordingly. For the MLD conditions, Jeffress followed a proposal of Webster (1951), which assumed that the basis for detection is the interaural time shifts between the signal plus noise in one ear and the signal plus noise in the other ear. No such time shifts are possible in the non-MLD conditions. The model proposed by Jeffress is able to account for many of the data obtained on MLD's. It is important, therefore, that the weaknesses of the model be closely examined, for it is possible that with minor modifications the model would be able to account for even more data. But, until detailed information is available on the inadequacies of the model in its present form, the nature of such modifications will not be obvious. The experiment reported here was designed to investigate one of the weaknesses of the Jeffress model.A small set of symbols is used to characterize the various interaural listening conditions. The masker, typically white noise, is designated N, and the signal, typically tonal, is designated S. If the interaural phase shift of the noise or of the signal is 0 ø, it is known as NO or SO, respectively. If the interaural phase shift is 180 ø, N•r or S•r is used. A monaural stimulus is characterized with an m. Thus, the monotic listening con-Redistribution subject to ASA license or copyright; see http://acousticalsociety.org/content/terms. Download to IP: 137.189.170.231 On: Sat

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Section: Figure L(a) Is a Vector Construction Representing An Instantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masking-Level Differences Determined with and without Interaural Disparities in Masker Intensity

McFadden

1968

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…Eight years later, it was found that the tonal signal and noise presented to one ear led to the same masking threshold as these presented to both ears [3]. In 1965, Mulligan and Wilbanks reported that a certain level of correlated noise in the ear without signal improved the detection of a tonal signal in noise, while the uncorrelated noise had the opposite effect [4]. It was confirmed that a given level of the correlated noise in the contralateral ear produced a constant increment in detection independent of the SNR in the signal ear [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 1965, Mulligan and Wilbanks reported that a certain level of correlated noise in the ear without signal improved the detection of a tonal signal in noise, while the uncorrelated noise had the opposite effect [4]. It was confirmed that a given level of the correlated noise in the contralateral ear produced a constant increment in detection independent of the SNR in the signal ear [4]. It was also found that the additional noise to the empty ear could reduce the threshold for the tonal signal presented only to one ear mixed with noise [5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing speech intelligibility in monaural hearing by adding noise at the other ear

Wang

Qiu

2019

Applied Acoustics

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Ambient environment noise can affect speech intelligibility in phone communication. This paper investigates the feasibility of increasing speech intelligibility in monaural hearing by adding noise at the other ear. The testing materials were generated by mixing the speech from the English Coordinate Response Measure corpus with three types of environmental noise, where 4 signals to noise ratios in the speech ear and 14 noise levels in the contralateral ear were included. The experimental results show that a proper level of contralateral noise can improve the speech intelligibility when the signal to noise ratio in the speech ear is lower than a certain level, but a large contralateral noise level has the opposite effect. A preliminary explanation for the phenomena is attempted by using a binaural loudness model and some psychoacoustic and physiological facts.

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“…Under optimal conditions, when a signal and a noise are presented to both ears and one or the other is reversed in phase, the signal can be detected at a level on the order of 18 dB lower than when both are in phase (Blodgett, Jeffress, &Taylor, 1958 ;Jeffress, Blodgett, &Deatherage, 1952Jeffress, et al, 1956 ;Webster, 1951) . Also, the detection of a tonal signal at one ear, partially masked by a noise at that ear, can be improved by as much as 10 dB when identical noise is added at the other ear (Blodgett, Jeffress , & Whitworth, 1962;Mulligan & Wilbanks, 1965 ;Weston & Miller, 1965;Wilbanks & Whitmore, 1968). In both cases, the signal to which the observer responds is too weak to be detected by mono aural means.…”

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Binaural detection as a function of signal frequency and noise level

Wilbanks

1979

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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This is a continuation of work by a number of investigators on the dependency of binaural masking-level differences (MLDs) upon signal frequency and noise spectrum level. Monaural (SM) and binaural (Sn]signals of 150, 250, 500, and 1,200 Hz were employed. The spectrum level of correlated noise (NO) was varied between + 10 and +55 dB. The results show that, with very low noise levels (+10 dB), the largest MLDs for monaural and binaural signals are obtained at 500 Hz (4 and 9 dB, respectively). As the noise level is raised to +55 dB, the signal frequency at which the largest MLDs occur shifts to 250 Hz (12 and 18 dB). At 150 Hz, the MLD increases from less than 1 and 3 dB to about 10 and 17 dB as the noise level is increased from + 10 to +55 dB. At 1,200 Hz, the MLD is relatively independent of noise level. Data are presented to support the argument that the small MLDs found with low-frequency signals at low noise levels are a special case of the effects upon detection of reducing the correlation of the masker due to the presence of uncorrelated acoustic noise generated under earphones and internal auditory system noise .

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Effect of Noise at One Ear on the Detection of Signals at the Other Ear

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Masking-Level Differences Determined with and without Interaural Disparities in Masker Intensity

Masking-Level Differences Determined with and without Interaural Disparities in Masker Intensity

Increasing speech intelligibility in monaural hearing by adding noise at the other ear

Binaural detection as a function of signal frequency and noise level

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