title: Roles of the target and masker fundamental frequencies in voice segregation.
abstract: Intelligibility of a target voice improves when its fundamental frequency (F0) differs from that of a masking voice, but it remains unclear how this masking release (MR) depends on the two relative F0s. Three experiments measured speech reception thresholds (SRTs) for a target voice against different maskers. Experiment 1 evaluated the influence of target F0 itself. SRTs against white noise were elevated by at least 2 dB for a monotonized target voice compared with the unprocessed voice, but SRTs differed little for F0s between 50 and 150 Hz. In experiments 2 and 3, a MR occurred when there was a steady difference in F0 between the target voice and a stationary speech-shaped harmonic complex or a babble. However, this MR was considerably larger when the F0 of the masker was 11 semitones above the target F0 than when it was 11 semitones below. In contrast, for a fixed masker F0, the MR was similar whether the target F0 was above or below. The dependency of these MRs on the masker F0 suggests that a spectral mechanism such as glimpsing in between resolved masker partials may account for an important part of this phenomenon.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 818 Ross Research Building, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.
authors.forename: Mickael L D
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Deroche
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Culling
authors.affiliation: Auditory Prostheses and Perception Laboratory, Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 N 30th Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68131.
authors.forename: Monita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chatterjee
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 818 Ross Research Building, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.
authors.forename: Charles J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Limb
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult