Temporal integration, frequency resolution, and off-frequency listening in normal-hearing and cochlear-impaired listeners.
Temporal integration for a 1000-Hz signal was determined for normal-hearing and cochlear hearing-impaired listeners in quiet and in masking noise of variable bandwidth. Critical ratio and 3-dB critical band measures of frequency resolution were derived from the masking data. Temporal integration for the normal-hearing listeners was markedly reduced in narrow-band noise, when contrasted with temporal integration in quiet or in wideband noise. The effect of noise bandwidth on temporal integration was smaller for the hearing-impaired group. Hearing-impaired subjects showed both reduced temporal integration and reduced frequency resolution for the 200-ms signal. However, a direct relation between temporal integration and frequency resolution was not indicated. Frequency resolution for the normal-hearing listeners did not differ from that of the hearing-impaired listeners for the 20-ms signal. It was suggested that some of the frequency resolution and temporal integration differences between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners could be accounted for by off-frequency listening.
D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010898:Pitch Perception; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013997:Time Factors