title: The effect of spatial separation on informational masking of speech in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.
abstract: The ability to understand speech in a multi-source environment containing informational masking may depend on the perceptual arrangement of signal and masker objects in space. In normal-hearing listeners, Arbogast et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 2086-2098 (2002)] found an 18-dB spatial release from a primarily informational masker, compared to 7 dB for a primarily energetic masker. This article extends the earlier work to include the study of listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Listeners performed closed-set speech recognition in two spatial conditions: 0 degrees and 90 degrees separation between signal and masker. Three maskers were tested: (1) the different-band sentence masker was designed to be primarily informational; (2) the different-band noise masker was a control for the different-band sentence; and (3) the same-band noise masker was designed to be primarily energetic. The spatial release from the different-band sentence was larger than for the other maskers, but was smaller (10 dB) for the hearing-impaired group than for the normal-hearing group (15 dB). The smaller benefit for the hearing-impaired listeners can be partially explained by masker sensation level. However, the results suggest that hearing-impaired listeners can use the perceptual effect of spatial separation to improve speech recognition in the presence of a primarily informational masker.
authors.affiliation: Hearing Research Center and Communication Disorders, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. tanya.arbogast@earthlink.net
authors.forename: Tanya L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Arbogast
authors.forename: Christine R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Mason
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kidd
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D003051:Cochlea / Q000503:physiopathology; D003056:Cochlear Nerve / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008144:Loudness Perception / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test