Preferred Compression Speed for Speech and Music and Its Relationship to Sensitivity to Temporal Fine Structure

Abstract

Multichannel amplitude compression is widely used in hearing aids. The preferred compression speed varies across individuals. Moore (2008) suggested that reduced sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) may be associated with preference for slow compression. This idea was tested using a simulated hearing aid. It was also assessed whether preferences for compression speed depend on the type of stimulus: speech or music. Twenty-two hearing-impaired subjects were tested, and the stimulated hearing aid was fitted individually using the CAM2A method. On each trial, a given segment of speech or music was presented twice. One segment was processed with fast compression and the other with slow compression, and the order was balanced across trials. The subject indicated which segment was preferred and by how much. On average, slow compression was preferred over fast compression, more so for music, but there were distinct individual differences, which were highly correlated for speech and music. Sensitivity to TFS was assessed using the difference limen for frequency at 2000 Hz and by two measures of sensitivity to interaural phase at low frequencies. The results for the difference limens for frequency, but not the measures of sensitivity to interaural phase, supported the suggestion that preference for compression speed is affected by sensitivity to TFS.

Development of a method for determining binaural sensitivity to temporal fine structure

“…These listeners achieved thresholds between 427 and 854 Hz on the TFS-AF test. These findings are consistent with and extend the observation of Moore and Sek (2016) that six of their older HI listeners could not complete the TFS-LF test but were able to complete the TFS-AF test.…”

“…Indeed, associations between speech-in-noise identification and TFS sensitivity have been reported (Hopkins and Moore 2011;Neher et al 2012), and these occur even when confounding effects of age, hearing loss, and cognition are controlled for (Füllgrabe, Moore, and Stone 2015;Oberfeld and Klöckner-Nowotny 2016). In addition, it has been argued that sensitivity to TFS information might determine which signal-processing features in hearing aids (such as slow versus fast dynamic range compression) would be more beneficial for a HI listener (Moore 2008;Moore and Sek 2016).…”

Retracted Article: Temporal fine structure: relations to cognition and aided speech recognition

“…Thus, these results do not clearly support (or arguably contradict) either a processing efficiency, general temporal processing, or auditory-only based explanation of the link between speech recognition and TFS. To our knowledge, no previous study has investigated whether signal processing strategy affects the relation between TFS sensitivity and speech in noise recognition, however, Moore and Se R k (2016) reported that older adults with poorer TFS sensitivity are more likely to prefer slow compression than those with better sensitivity to TFS. In this study, we did not collect data on subjective preferences for signal processing strategies, but it would interesting for future research to further investigate the relation between subjective and objective outcome measures.…”

“…Perez et al (2014) therefore suggest that testing TFS sensitivity prior to hearing aid fitting could provide useful information in terms of predicting, and managing individuals' expectations of, hearing aid outcomes. Further support for the idea that information regarding TFS sensitivity should be considered prior to hearing aid fitting is provided by Moore and Se R k (2016) who found that participants with poorer sensitivity to TFS showed a tendency to prefer slow compression over fast compression (although there was a lot of variation between individuals) and Lopez-Poveda et al (2017), who found that temporal processing ability predicted aided speech intelligibility in noise in adults with hearing impairment.…”

PSYCHOACOUSTICS: Software package for psychoacoustics

“…One problem with the TFS-LF test is that some subjects are completely unable to perform the test using the selected test frequency (often 500 Hz). A variation on the test that can be performed by most subjects is the TFS-AF test [55,56]. This is similar to the TFS-LF test except that ' is fixed (usually at 180 ) and the frequency is adaptively varied to determine the threshold.…”