title: Self-masking: Listening during vocalization. Normal hearing.
abstract: What underlying mechanisms are involved in the ability to talk and listen simultaneously and what role does self-masking play under conditions of hearing impairment? The purpose of the present series of studies is to describe a technique for assessment of masked thresholds during vocalization, to describe normative data for males and females, and to focus on hearing impairment. The masking effect of vocalized [a:] on narrow-band noise pulses (250-8000 Hz) was studied using the maximum vocalization method. An amplitude-modulated series of sound pulses, which sounded like a steam engine, was masked until the criterion of halving the perceived pulse rate was reached. For masking of continuous reading, a just-follow-conversation criterion was applied. Intra-session test-retest reproducibility and inter-session variability were calculated. The results showed that female voices were more efficient in masking high frequency noise bursts than male voices and more efficient in masking both a male and a female test reading. The male had to vocalize 4 dBA louder than the female to produce the same masking effect on the test reading. It is concluded that the method is relatively simple to apply and has small intra-session and fair inter-session variability. Interesting gender differences were observed.
authors.affiliation: Ahlsen Research Institute, University Hospital of Orebro, Orebro, Sweden. erik.borg@orebroll.se
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Borg
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bergkvist
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gustafsson
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D055815:Young Adult