
doi: 10.1121/1.400657
pmid: 2030221
Modulation thresholds were measured in three subjects for a sinusoidalloy amplitude-modulated (SAM) wideband noise (the signal) in the presence of a second amplitude-modulated wideband noise (the masker). In monaural conditions (Mm-Sm) masker and signal were presented to only one ear; in binaural conditions (M0-Sπ) the masker was presented diotically while the phase of modulation of the SAM noise signal was inverted in one ear relative to the other. In experiment 1 masker modulation frequency (fm) was fixed at 16 Hz, and signal modulation frequency (fs) was varied from 2–512 Hz. For monaural presentation, masking generally decreased as fs diverged from fm, although there was a secondary increase in masking for very low signal modulation frequencies, as reported previously [Bacon and Grantham, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 2575–2580 (1989)]. The binaural masking patterns did not show this low-frequency upturn: binaural thresholds continued to improve as fs decreased from 16 to 2 Hz. Thus, comparing masked monaural and masked binaural thresholds, there was an average binaural advantage, or masking-level difference (MLD) of 9.4 dB at fs=2 Hz and 5.3 dB at fs=4 Hz. In addition, there were positive MLDs for the on-frequency condition (fm=fs=16 Hz: average MLD=4.4 dB) and for the highest signal frequency tested (fs=512 Hz: average MLD=7.3 dB). In experiment 2 the signal was a SAM noise (fs=16 Hz), and the masker was a wideband noise, amplitude-modulated by a narrow band of noise centered at fs. There was no effect on monaural or binaural thresholds as masker modulator bandwidth was varied from 4 to 20 Hz (the average MLD remained constant at 8.0 dB), which suggests that the observed “tuning” for modulation may be based on temporal pattern discrimination and not on a critical-band-like filtering mechanism. In a final condition the masker modulator was a 10-Hz-wide band of noise centered at the 64-Hz signal modulation frequency. The average MLD in this case was 7.4 dB. The results are discussed in terms of various binaural capacities that probably play a role in binaural release from modulation masking, including detection of varying interaural intensity differences (IIDs) and discrimination of interaural correlation.
Adult, Pitch Discrimination, Acoustic Stimulation, Hearing, Humans, Auditory Threshold, Female, Acoustics, Noise, Perceptual Masking
Adult, Pitch Discrimination, Acoustic Stimulation, Hearing, Humans, Auditory Threshold, Female, Acoustics, Noise, Perceptual Masking
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