Intensity DLs and Masking in Normal and Impaired Hearing

这项工作的长期目标是了解听觉系统，这将允许对听力正常和听力损失的听众的音调，噪声和语音的感知进行建模。在这个项目中要测试的首要假设是，耳蜗听力损失在不同频率下改变不同的听觉处理，并且在特定频率下的改变只会影响该频率附近的语音频带传输的语音信息。 为此，将对听力正常和初级耳蜗听力损失的听众进行测试，以确定不同频谱方案中的听觉处理缺陷。这些缺陷将涉及到听众的能力，理解语音在噪音中应用新的语音识别灵敏度。与传统的发音指数模型相反，SRS模型可以准确地预测不相交频谱带中语音的可懂度，从而可以对耳蜗损失中的“死”区域进行建模。它预测语音清晰度，除其他事项外，整合的重要性函数的一致性指数密度函数。CIDF在演讲的带宽上。具体的目的是测试四个假设：（1）语音识别性能可以从CIDF预测，这取决于特定频率的心理声学能力。(2)正常听众的CIDF类似于语音清晰度指数中无意义音节的频带重要性函数。(3)通过在语音的不同频带中随机改变信噪比而获得的条件单刺激（COSS）函数并不反映每个频带对可懂度的贡献。相反，SRS模型可以通过改变反映语音的语言熵的单个参数来预测不同语音材料的识别性能。为了检验这些假设，CIDF获得了一个新的COSS技术将进行比较的时间，频率和强度处理的特定频率的心理声学测试的目标集的数据。SRS模型预测将与测量的语音识别分数进行比较。所有的实验都是由模型预测或特定的假设心理声学能力，可能是重要的语音识别的动机。无论该模型是否成功，数据都很可能揭示对语音识别非常重要的听觉过程，并将显著增加我们对听力正常和听力损失的听众的听觉感知和语音识别的理解。

The long-term objective of this work is to reach an understanding of the auditory system that will allow modeling of the perception of tones, noise, and speech in listeners with normal hearing and hearing losses. The overarching hypothesis to be tested in this project is that cochlear hearing losses alter auditory processing differently at different frequencies and that alterations at a specific frequency will affect only the speech information transmitted by a band of speech around that frequency. To this end, listeners with normal hearing and with hearing losses of primary cochlear origin will be tested to identify auditory- processing deficits in different spectral regimens. These deficits will be related to the listeners' abilities to understand speech in noise by applying the new Speech Recognition-Sensitivity. Contrary to traditional Articulation-Index models, the SRS model can accurately predict the intelligibility of speech in disjoint spectral bands, making it possible to model 'dead' regions in cochlear losses. It predicts speech intelligibility by, among other things, integrating an importance function the Congruence-Index Density Function. CIDF across the bandwidth of the speech. The specific aims are to test four hypotheses: (1) Speech - recognition performance can be predicted from the CIDF, which depends on frequency-specific psychoacoustic abilities. (2) The CIDF for normal listeners is similar to the band-importance function for nonsense syllables in the Speech Intelligibility Index. (3) Conditional-on-Single- Stimulus (COSS) functions obtained by varying the signal-to-noise ratio randomly in distinct frequency bands of speech do not reflect the contribution that each band makes to the intelligibility. Rather, as the SRS model can predict recognition performance for different speech materials by varying a single parameter that reflects the linguistic entropy of the speech. To test these hypotheses, the CIDF obtained with a new COSS techniques will be compared to data for a targeted set of frequency-specific psychoacoustical tests for temporal, frequency, and intensity processing. The SRS-model predictions will be compared to measured speech-recognition scores. All the experiments are motivated by model predictions or specific hypotheses about psychoacoustic abilities that are likely to be important for speech recognition. Regardless of the success of the model, are data are highly likely to reveal auditory processes that are important for recognition of speech and will add significantly to our understanding of auditory perception and speech recognition in listeners with normal hearing and with hearing losses.