The role of interaural differences on speech intelligibility in complex multi-talker environments.

Interaural differences in time (ITDs) and interaural differences in level (ILDs) contribute to a listener's ability to achieve spatial release from masking (SRM), and help to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments. In this study, the extent to which ITDs and ILDs contribute to SRM and the relationships with aging and hearing loss were examined. SRM was greatest when stimuli were presented with consistent ITD and ILD, relative to ITD or ILD alone, all of which produced greater SRM than when ITD and ILD cues were in conflict with each other. This pattern was independent of age and hearing loss.

[1]  I. Hirsh.  The Influence of Interaural Phase on Interaural Summation and Inhibition , 1948 .

[2]  L. A. Jeffress,et al.  Masking of Tonal Signals , 1956 .

[3]  N. Durlach.  Equalization and Cancellation Theory of Binaural Masking‐Level Differences , 1963 .

[4]  F. A. Webster,et al.  The Influence of Interaural Phase on Masked Thresholds I. The Role of Interaural Time‐Deviation , 1951 .

[5]  G. F. Kuhn.  Model for the interaural time differences in the azimuthal plane , 1977 .

[6]  E. Hafter,et al.  Binaural interaction in low-frequency stimuli: the inability to trade time and intensity completely. , 1972, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[7]  Virginia Best,et al.  The extent to which a position-based explanation accounts for binaural release from informational masking. , 2008, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[8]  N. I. Durlach.  Note on the Equalization and Cancellation Theory of Binaural Masking Level Differences , 1960 .

[9]  H S Colburn,et al.  Analysis of binaural detection models for dependence on interaural target parameters. , 1976, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[10]  N. Durlach,et al.  TIME-INTENSITY RELATIONS IN BINAURAL UNMASKING. , 1965, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[11]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[12]  Areti Andreopoulou,et al.  Towards the Creation of a Standardized HRTF Repository , 2011 .

[13]  Jörg M. Buchholz,et al.  The importance of interaural time differences and level differences in spatial release from masking. , 2013, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[14]  Ruth Y Litovsky,et al.  The role of head-induced interaural time and level differences in the speech reception threshold for multiple interfering sound sources. , 2004, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[15]  W. T. Nelson,et al.  A speech corpus for multitalker communications research. , 2000, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[16]  Harvey Dillon,et al.  Problems Hearing in Noise in Older Adults , 2011, Trends in amplification.