CENTRAL FACTORS IN AUDITORY MASKING

这项工作的目标是获得一个更好的理解的作用，在听觉掩蔽耳蜗听力损失的听众的中枢因素。 该研究对于理解耳蜗性听力损失患者沟通困难的原因，对听力障碍的研究和矫治具有重要的理论意义。 该提案基于一种理论，该理论确定了发生在不同生理水平的两种类型的掩蔽。 外周或“能量”掩蔽由于耳蜗中的重叠的激励模式而发生，并且已经被详细研究多年。 中央或“信息”掩蔽涉及与声音图像的感知组织和声音模式的分析相关的认知过程。 信息掩蔽还没有得到很好的理解，尽管在听觉周边的信号的鲁棒表示发生。 本研究的目的是将信息掩蔽的研究扩展到听力损失的听者。 这方面的知识是至关重要的，因为影响感觉机制的听觉病理的流行，以及这种病理经常导致的交流的极端困难，特别是在嘈杂的听力条件下。 虽然很明显，感觉病理学影响的频谱和时间的分析在外围进行，似乎有一个重要的组成部分，掩蔽，不能纯粹归因于外围赤字。 该计划是为了测试这一假设，即感音神经性听力损失的听众在某些条件下会经历异常大量的信息掩蔽，并且不能充分利用通常会减少信息掩蔽的线索。 这一假设将通过一系列的心理声学实验与耳蜗听力损失的听众进行检查。 我们的目标是将信息掩蔽的量与诸如病因和损失的配置、听觉过滤器特性和处理效率、年龄和噪声中的语音识别等因素相关联。

The goal of this work is to gain a better understanding of the role of central factors in auditory masking in listeners with cochlear hearing loss. The work has theoretical significance for the study and remediation of hearing impairment by aiming to better understand the causes of the communication difficulties experienced by listeners with cochlear hearing loss. The proposal is based on a theory that identifies two types of masking that occur at different physiological levels. Peripheral or "energetic" masking occurs because of overlapping patterns of excitation in the cochlea and has been studied in detail for many years. Central or "informational" masking involves cognitive processes related to the perceptual organization of sound images and the analysis of sound patterns. Informational masking is not well understood, and occurs despite a robust representation of the signal in the auditory periphery. The purpose of this study is to extend the work on informational masking to listeners with hearing loss. This knowledge is critical because of the prevalence of auditory pathologies affecting the sensory mechanism and the extreme difficulty in communication such pathologies often cause, particularly in noisy listening conditions. Although it is clear that sensory pathology affects the spectral and temporal analyses performed at the periphery, there appears to be a significant component to masking that cannot be attributed purely to peripheral deficits. The plan is to test the hypothesis that listeners with sensorineural hearing loss experience abnormally large amounts of informational masking in certain conditions and make poor use of the cues that normally reduce informational masking. This hypothesis will be examined through a series of psychoacoustic experiments employing listeners with cochlear hearing loss. The goal is to relate the amount of informational masking to factors such as etiology and configuration of loss, auditory filter characteristics and processing efficiency, age and speech recognition in noise.