Simulation of the effects of sensorineural hearing loss

By processing sounds with combinations of amplitude expansion and spectral smearing, listeners with normal hearing can experience the elevated thresholds, abnormal growth of loudness, and reduced frequency selectivity that are characterisic of sensorineural hearing loss. The effects of these simulations in isolation and in combination were investigated in a variety of psychoacoustic and speech reception tasks. In tests of frequency selectivity, expansion raises narrowband noise masking patterns and broadens the low frequency side of psychoacoustic tuning curves. Frequency smearing broadens the narrowband noise masking patterns and broadens both sides of the tuning curves. In tests of loudness matching, expansion substantially reduces loudness summation and frequency smearing has little effect. The effects of the simulations on consonant reception depend on SNR. Expansion causes a greater reduction in intelligibility at high SNR's than low SNR's, and spectral smearing is more significant at low SNR's than high SNR's. Thesis Supervisor: Louis D. Braida Title: Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering

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