Release from informational masking in children: Effect of multiple signal bursts

Abstract

This study examined the degree to which increasing the number of signal presentations provides children with a release from informational masking. Listeners were younger children ͑5-7 years͒, older children ͑8-10 years͒, and adults. Detection thresholds were measured for a sequence of repeating 50-ms bursts of a 1000-Hz pure-tone signal embedded in a sequence of 10-and 50-ms bursts of a random-frequency, two-tone masker. Masker bursts were played at an overall level of 60-dB sound pressure level in each interval of a two-interval, forced choice adaptive procedure. Performance was examined for conditions with two, four, five, and six signal bursts. Regardless of the number of signal bursts, thresholds for most children were higher than thresholds for most adults. Despite developmental effects in informational masking, however, masked threshold decreased with additional signal bursts by a similar amount for younger children, older children, and adults. The magnitude of masking release for both groups of children and for adults was inconsistent with absolute energy detection. Instead, increasing the number of signal bursts appears to aid children in the perceptual segregation of the fixed-frequency signal from the random-frequency masker as has been previously reported for adults ͓Kidd, G., et al. ͑2003͒. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 114, 2835-2845͔.

Effect of signal-temporal uncertainty in children and adults: Tone detection in noise or a random-frequency masker

“…Reductions in informational masking with increasing age during childhood have also been reported in the literature (Leibold and Bonino, 2009;Leibold and Neff, 2007;Lutfi et al, 2003b;Wightman et al, 2003). For example, 8-to 10-yr-old children have better thresholds than 5-to 7-yr-old children for the detection of a tone in the presence of a random-frequency, multi-tonal masker (Leibold and Neff, 2007;Leibold and Bonino, 2009). Despite improvements in performance with increasing age during childhood, significant child-adult differences have been observed as late as adolescence for the detection of a pure-tone signal embedded in a random-frequency, multitonal masker (Lutfi et al, 2003b;Wightman et al, 2003).…”

“…These masking effects tend to be pronounced during childhood, with child-adult differences as large as 50 dB (e.g., Oh et al, 2001). Reductions in informational masking with increasing age during childhood have also been reported in the literature (Leibold and Bonino, 2009;Leibold and Neff, 2007;Lutfi et al, 2003b;Wightman et al, 2003). For example, 8-to 10-yr-old children have better thresholds than 5-to 7-yr-old children for the detection of a tone in the presence of a random-frequency, multi-tonal masker (Leibold and Neff, 2007;Leibold and Bonino, 2009).…”

“…This result was unexpected. Previous studies have consistently reported increased susceptibility to informational masking for children compared to adults (e.g., Lutfi et al, 2003b;Oh et al, 2001), as well as age-related improvements during childhood (e.g., Leibold and Bonino, 2009;Leibold and Neff, 2007).…”

Spatial release from masking in children with bilateral cochlear implants and with normal hearing: Effect of target-interferer similarity

“…Although NH children are able to use spatial cues for source segregation, developmental effects have been reported in free field Yuen and Yuan, 2014) and for contralateral unmasking headphone stimulations (Wightman and Kistler, 2005). This difference could be due to the fact that informational masking also depends on development of central auditory mechanisms and nonauditory factors such as attention (Leibold and Bonino, 2009;Lutfi et al, 2003;Wightman et al, 2010).…”

“…It is known that auditory pathways continue to mature into adolescence (Boothroyd, 1997). Specific to this study, informational masking has been shown to have a developmental component (Leibold and Bonino, 2009;Wightman and Kistler, 2005). Wightman et al (2010) tested NH populations ages 5 to 61 and showed that the most variability on a dichotic listening task involving informational masking was observed in NH children ages 6 to 12 years of age.…”