title: Auditory-filter characteristics for listeners with real and simulated hearing impairment.
abstract: Functional simulation of sensorineural hearing impairment is an important research tool that can elucidate the nature of hearing impairments and suggest or eliminate compensatory signal-processing schemes. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the capability of an audibility-based functional simulation of hearing loss to reproduce the auditory-filter characteristics of listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. The hearing-loss simulation used either threshold-elevating noise alone or a combination of threshold-elevating noise and multiband expansion to reproduce the audibility-based characteristics of the loss (including detection thresholds, dynamic range, and loudness recruitment). The hearing losses of 10 listeners with bilateral, mild-to-severe hearing loss were simulated in 10 corresponding groups of 3 age-matched normal-hearing listeners. Frequency selectivity was measured using a notched-noise masking paradigm at five probe frequencies in the range of 250 to 4000 Hz with a fixed probe level of either 70 dB SPL or 8 dB SL (whichever was greater) and probe duration of 200 ms. The hearing-loss simulation reproduced the absolute thresholds of individual hearing-impaired listeners with an average root-mean-squared (RMS) difference of 2.2 dB and the notched-noise masked thresholds with an RMS difference of 5.6 dB. A rounded-exponential model of the notched-noise data was used to estimate equivalent rectangular bandwidths and slopes of the auditory filters. For some subjects and probe frequencies, the simulations were accurate in reproducing the auditory-filter characteristics of the hearing-impaired listeners. In other cases, however, the simulations underestimated the magnitude of the auditory bandwidths for the hearing-impaired listeners, which suggests the possibility of suprathreshold deficits.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. jdesloge@mit.edu
authors.forename: Joseph G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Desloge
authors.forename: Charlotte M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.forename: Louis D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Braida
authors.forename: Zachary D
authors.initials: ZD
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.forename: Lorraine A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Delhorne
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D055815:Young Adult