The detection of differences in the cues to distance by elderly hearing-impaired listeners.
This experiment measured the capability of hearing-impaired individuals to discriminate differences in the cues to the distance of spoken sentences. The stimuli were generated synthetically, using a room-image procedure to calculate the direct sound and first 74 reflections for a source placed in a 7 x 9 m room, and then presenting each of those sounds individually through a circular array of 24 loudspeakers. Seventy-seven listeners participated, aged 22-83 years and with hearing levels from -5 to 59 dB HL. In conditions where a substantial change in overall level due to the inverse-square law was available as a cue, the elderly hearing-impaired listeners did not perform any different from control groups. In other conditions where that cue was unavailable (so leaving the direct-to-reverberant relationship as a cue), either because the reverberant field dominated the direct sound or because the overall level had been artificially equalized, hearing-impaired listeners performed worse than controls. There were significant correlations with listeners' self-reported distance capabilities as measured by the "Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing" questionnaire [S. Gatehouse and W. Noble, Int. J. Audiol. 43, 85-99 (2004)]. The results demonstrate that hearing-impaired listeners show deficits in the ability to use some of the cues which signal auditory distance.
Akeroyd
Michael A
MA
MRC Institute of Hearing Research (Scottish Section), Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Alexandra Parade, Glasgow, G31 2ER, United Kingdom. maa@ihr.gla.ac.uk
Gatehouse
Stuart
S
Blaschke
Julia
J
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003463:Cues; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011304:Presbycusis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012016:Reference Values; D013017:Sound Localization; D013067:Speech Perception