title: The role of early and late reflections on spatial release from masking: Effects of age and hearing loss.
abstract: Early reflections have been linked to improved speech intelligibility, while later-arriving reverberant sound has been shown to limit speech understanding. Here, these effects were examined by artificially removing either early reflections or late reflections. Removing late reflections improved performance more for colocated than for spatially separated maskers. Results of a multiple regression analysis suggest that pure-tone average (PTA) is a significant predictor of spatial release from masking (SRM) in all acoustic conditions. Controlling for the effects of PTA, age is a significant predictor of SRM only when early reflections are absent.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, Department of Veterans Affairs, 3710 Southwest United States Veterans Hospital Road, P5-NCRAR, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA NSrinivasan@towson.edu, Meghan.Stansell@va.gov, Frederick.Gallun@va.gov.
authors.forename: Nirmal Kumar
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.affiliation: National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, Department of Veterans Affairs, 3710 Southwest United States Veterans Hospital Road, P5-NCRAR, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA NSrinivasan@towson.edu, Meghan.Stansell@va.gov, Frederick.Gallun@va.gov.
authors.forename: Meghan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stansell
authors.affiliation: National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, Department of Veterans Affairs, 3710 Southwest United States Veterans Hospital Road, P5-NCRAR, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA NSrinivasan@towson.edu, Meghan.Stansell@va.gov, Frederick.Gallun@va.gov.
authors.forename: Frederick J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Gallun
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000367:Age Factors; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D032882:Comprehension; D006309:Hearing; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D009038:Motion; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D013016:Sound; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D014732:Vibration