Weighting of Spatial and Spectro-Temporal Cues for Auditory Scene Analysis by Human Listeners

The auditory system creates a neuronal representation of the acoustic world based on spectral and temporal cues present at the listener''s ears, including cues that potentially signal the locations of sounds. Discrimination of concurrent sounds from multiple sources is especially challenging. The current study is part of an effort to better understand the neuronal mechanisms governing this process, which has been termed “auditory scene analysis”. In particular, we are interested in spatial release from masking by which spatial cues can segregate signals from other competing sounds, thereby overcoming the tendency of overlapping spectra and/or common temporal envelopes to fuse signals with maskers. We studied detection of pulsed tones in free-field conditions in the presence of concurrent multi-tone non-speech maskers. In “energetic” masking conditions, in which the frequencies of maskers fell within the ±1/3-octave band containing the signal, spatial release from masking at low frequencies (∼600 Hz) was found to be about 10 dB. In contrast, negligible spatial release from energetic masking was seen at high frequencies (∼4000 Hz). We observed robust spatial release from masking in broadband “informational” masking conditions, in which listeners could confuse signal with masker even though there was no spectral overlap. Substantial spatial release was observed in conditions in which the onsets of the signal and all masker components were synchronized, and spatial release was even greater under asynchronous conditions. Spatial cues limited to high frequencies (>1500 Hz), which could have included interaural level differences and the better-ear effect, produced only limited improvement in signal detection. Substantially greater improvement was seen for low-frequency sounds, for which interaural time differences are the dominant spatial cue.     

Effect of harmonicity on the detection of a signal in a complex masker and on spatial release from masking

The amount of masking of sounds from one source (signals) by sounds from a competing source (maskers) heavily depends on the sound characteristics of the masker and the signal and on their relative spatial location. Numerous studies investigated the ability to detect a signal in a speech or a noise masker or the effect of spatial separation of signal and masker on the amount of masking, but there is a lack of studies investigating the combined effects of many cues on the masking as is typical for natural listening situations. The current study using free-field listening systematically evaluates the combined effects of harmonicity and inharmonicity cues in multi-tone maskers and cues resulting from spatial separation of target signal and masker on the detection of a pure tone in a multi-tone or a noise masker. A linear binaural processing model was implemented to predict the masked thresholds in order to estimate whether the observed thresholds can be accounted for by energetic masking in the auditory periphery or whether other effects are involved. Thresholds were determined for combinations of two target frequencies (1 and 8 kHz), two spatial configurations (masker and target either co-located or spatially separated by 90 degrees azimuth), and five different masker types (four complex multi-tone stimuli, one noise masker). A spatial separation of target and masker resulted in a release from masking for all masker types. The amount of masking significantly depended on the masker type and frequency range. The various harmonic and inharmonic relations between target and masker or between components of the masker resulted in a complex pattern of increased or decreased masked thresholds in comparison to the predicted energetic masking. The results indicate that harmonicity cues affect the detectability of a tonal target in a complex masker.     

Speech Perception and Localisation with SCORE Bimodal: A Loudness Normalisation Strategy for Combined Cochlear Implant and Hearing Aid Stimulation

A significant fraction of newly implanted cochlear implant recipients use a hearing aid in their non-implanted ear. SCORE bimodal is a sound processing strategy developed for this configuration, aimed at normalising loudness perception and improving binaural loudness balance. Speech perception performance in quiet and noise and sound localisation ability of six bimodal listeners were measured with and without application of SCORE. Speech perception in quiet was measured either with only acoustic, only electric, or bimodal stimulation, at soft and normal conversational levels. For speech in quiet there was a significant improvement with application of SCORE. Speech perception in noise was measured for either steady-state noise, fluctuating noise, or a competing talker, at conversational levels with bimodal stimulation. For speech in noise there was no significant effect of application of SCORE. Modelling of interaural loudness differences in a long-term-average-speech-spectrum-weighted click train indicated that left-right discrimination of sound sources can improve with application of SCORE. As SCORE was found to leave speech perception unaffected or to improve it, it seems suitable for implementation in clinical devices.     

Contralateral Masking in Bilateral Cochlear Implant Patients: A Model of Medial Olivocochlear Function Loss

Contralateral masking is the phenomenon where a masker presented to one ear affects the ability to detect a signal in the opposite ear. For normal hearing listeners, contralateral masking results in masking patterns that are both sharper and dramatically smaller in magnitude than ipsilateral masking. The goal of this study was to investigate whether medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferents are needed for the sharpness and relatively small magnitude of the contralateral masking function. To do this, bilateral cochlear implant patients were tested because, by directly stimulating the auditory nerve, cochlear implants circumvent the effects of the MOC efferents. The results indicated that, as with normal hearing listeners, the contralateral masking function was sharper than the ipsilateral masking function. However, although there was a reduction in the magnitude of the contralateral masking function compared to the ipsilateral masking function, it was relatively modest. This is in sharp contrast to the results of normal hearing listeners where the magnitude of the contralateral masking function is greatly reduced. These results suggest that MOC function may not play a large role in the sharpness of the contralateral masking function but may play a considerable role in the magnitude of the contralateral masking function.     

Perception of Binaural Cues Develops in Children Who Are Deaf through Bilateral Cochlear Implantation

There are significant challenges to restoring binaural hearing to children who have been deaf from an early age. The uncoordinated and poor temporal information available from cochlear implants distorts perception of interaural timing differences normally important for sound localization and listening in noise. Moreover, binaural development can be compromised by bilateral and unilateral auditory deprivation. Here, we studied perception of both interaural level and timing differences in 79 children/adolescents using bilateral cochlear implants and 16 peers with normal hearing. They were asked on which side of their head they heard unilaterally or bilaterally presented click- or electrical pulse- trains. Interaural level cues were identified by most participants including adolescents with long periods of unilateral cochlear implant use and little bilateral implant experience. Interaural timing cues were not detected by new bilateral adolescent users, consistent with previous evidence. Evidence of binaural timing detection was, for the first time, found in children who had much longer implant experience but it was marked by poorer than normal sensitivity and abnormally strong dependence on current level differences between implants. In addition, children with prior unilateral implant use showed a higher proportion of responses to their first implanted sides than children implanted simultaneously. These data indicate that there are functional repercussions of developing binaural hearing through bilateral cochlear implants, particularly when provided sequentially; nonetheless, children have an opportunity to use these devices to hear better in noise and gain spatial hearing.     

Forward masking in the evoked responses of the guinea pig auditory cortex: effects of variation of the interaural time and phase differences

In anaesthesized guinea pigs the evoked potentials of the auditory cortex were studied in a forward masking paradigm. In-phase and out-of-phase binaurally presented clicks with interaural time delay (ITD) were used as masker, in-phase click with ITD = 0 served as probe signal. Addition of the masking stimulus suppressed the probe-evoked response that followed the masker. The magnitude of the suppression correlated with the amount of the masker-evoked response: an increase in masker-evoked excitation caused a greater reduction in probe response magnitude. Amplitude of masker-evoked response was seen to be a monotonic or non-monotonic function of ITD. The non-monotonic response exhibited a sensitivity to the interaural phase differences when in-phase and out-of-phase maskers were presented, and showed the tendency to be periodic function of ITD in the expanded range of ITD values. Phase-sensitive responses differed in recovery time following the in-phase and out-of-phase masking stimuli. At near-threshold levels of a forward masker an enhancement of the probe-evoked response was observed.     

Impact of a Moving Noise Masker on Speech Perception in Cochlear Implant Users

ObjectivesPrevious studies investigating speech perception in noise have typically been conducted with static masker positions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of spatial separation of source and masker (spatial release from masking, SRM) in a moving masker setup and to evaluate the impact of adaptive beamforming in comparison with fixed directional microphones in cochlear implant (CI) users.DesignSpeech reception thresholds (SRT) were measured in S₀N₀ and in a moving masker setup (S₀N_move) in 12 normal hearing participants and 14 CI users (7 subjects bilateral, 7 bimodal with a hearing aid in the contralateral ear). Speech processor settings were a moderately directional microphone, a fixed beamformer, or an adaptive beamformer. The moving noise source was generated by means of wave field synthesis and was smoothly moved in a shape of a half-circle from one ear to the contralateral ear. Noise was presented in either of two conditions: continuous or modulated.ResultsSRTs in the S₀N_move setup were significantly improved compared to the S₀N₀ setup for both the normal hearing control group and the bilateral group in continuous noise, and for the control group in modulated noise. There was no effect of subject group. A significant effect of directional sensitivity was found in the S₀N_move setup. In the bilateral group, the adaptive beamformer achieved lower SRTs than the fixed beamformer setting. Adaptive beamforming improved SRT in both CI user groups substantially by about 3 dB (bimodal group) and 8 dB (bilateral group) depending on masker type.ConclusionsCI users showed SRM that was comparable to normal hearing subjects. In listening situations of everyday life with spatial separation of source and masker, directional microphones significantly improved speech perception with individual improvements of up to 15 dB SNR. Users of bilateral speech processors with both directional microphones obtained the highest benefit.     

The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing

Background

Enjoyment of music is an important part of life that may be degraded for people with hearing impairments, especially those using cochlear implants. The ability to follow separate lines of melody is an important factor in music appreciation. This ability relies on effective auditory streaming, which is much reduced in people with hearing impairment, contributing to difficulties in music appreciation. The aim of this study was to assess whether visual cues could reduce the subjective difficulty of segregating a melody from interleaved background notes in normally hearing listeners, those using hearing aids, and those using cochlear implants.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Normally hearing listeners (N = 20), hearing aid users (N = 10), and cochlear implant users (N = 11) were asked to rate the difficulty of segregating a repeating four-note melody from random interleaved distracter notes. The pitch of the background notes was gradually increased or decreased throughout blocks, providing a range of difficulty from easy (with a large pitch separation between melody and distracter) to impossible (with the melody and distracter completely overlapping). Visual cues were provided on half the blocks, and difficulty ratings for blocks with and without visual cues were compared between groups. Visual cues reduced the subjective difficulty of extracting the melody from the distracter notes for normally hearing listeners and cochlear implant users, but not hearing aid users.

Conclusion/Significance

Simple visual cues may improve the ability of cochlear implant users to segregate lines of music, thus potentially increasing their enjoyment of music. More research is needed to determine what type of acoustic cues to encode visually in order to optimise the benefits they may provide.     

Mutation in the Kv3.3 Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel Causing Spinocerebellar Ataxia 13 Disrupts Sound-Localization Mechanisms

Normal sound localization requires precise comparisons of sound timing and pressure levels between the two ears. The primary localization cues are interaural time differences, ITD, and interaural level differences, ILD. Voltage-gated potassium channels, including Kv3.3, are highly expressed in the auditory brainstem and are thought to underlie the exquisite temporal precision and rapid spike rates that characterize brainstem binaural pathways. An autosomal dominant mutation in the gene encoding Kv3.3 has been demonstrated in a large Filipino kindred manifesting as spinocerebellar ataxia type 13 (SCA13). This kindred provides a rare opportunity to test in vivo the importance of a specific channel subunit for human hearing. Here, we demonstrate psychophysically that individuals with the mutant allele exhibit profound deficits in both ITD and ILD sensitivity, despite showing no obvious impairment in pure-tone sensitivity with either ear. Surprisingly, several individuals exhibited the auditory deficits even though they were pre-symptomatic for SCA13. We would expect that impairments of binaural processing as great as those observed in this family would result in prominent deficits in localization of sound sources and in loss of the "spatial release from masking" that aids in understanding speech in the presence of competing sounds.     

Spatial unmasking in the echolocating Big Brown Bat, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Eptesicus fuscus</Emphasis>

Masking affects the ability of echolocating bats to detect a target in the presence of clutter targets. It can be reduced by spatially separating the targets. Spatial unmasking was measured in a two-alternative-forced-choice detection experiment with four Big Brown Bats detecting a wire at 1 m distance. Depth dependent spatial unmasking was investigated by the bats detecting a wire with a diameter of 1.2 mm in front of a masker with a threshold distance of 11 cm behind the wire. For angle dependent spatial unmasking the masker was turned laterally, starting from its threshold position at 11 cm. With increasing masker angles the bats could detect thinner wires with diameters decreasing from 1.2 mm (target strength −36.8 dB) at 0° to 0.2 mm (target strength −63.0 dB) at 22°. Without masker, the bats detected wire diameters of 0.16 mm (target strength −66.2 dB), reached with masker positions beyond 23° (complete masking release). Analysis of the sonar signals indicated strategies in the echolocation behavior. The bats enhanced the second harmonics of their signals. This may improve the spatial separation between wire and masker due to frequency-dependent directionality increase of sound emission and echo reception.     

The Effect of Automatic Gain Control Structure and Release Time on Cochlear Implant Speech Intelligibility

Nucleus cochlear implant systems incorporate a fast-acting front-end automatic gain control (AGC), sometimes called a compression limiter. The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of replacing the front-end compression limiter with a newly proposed envelope profile limiter. A secondary objective was to investigate the effect of AGC speed on cochlear implant speech intelligibility. The envelope profile limiter was located after the filter bank and reduced the gain when the largest of the filter bank envelopes exceeded the compression threshold. The compression threshold was set equal to the saturation level of the loudness growth function (i.e. the envelope level that mapped to the maximum comfortable current level), ensuring that no envelope clipping occurred. To preserve the spectral profile, the same gain was applied to all channels. Experiment 1 compared sentence recognition with the front-end limiter and with the envelope profile limiter, each with two release times (75 and 625 ms). Six implant recipients were tested in quiet and in four-talker babble noise, at a high presentation level of 89 dB SPL. Overall, release time had a larger effect than the AGC type. With both AGC types, speech intelligibility was lower for the 75 ms release time than for the 625 ms release time. With the shorter release time, the envelope profile limiter provided higher group mean scores than the front-end limiter in quiet, but there was no significant difference in noise. Experiment 2 measured sentence recognition in noise as a function of presentation level, from 55 to 89 dB SPL. The envelope profile limiter with 625 ms release time yielded better scores than the front-end limiter with 75 ms release time. A take-home study showed no clear pattern of preferences. It is concluded that the envelope profile limiter is a feasible alternative to a front-end compression limiter.     

Change in Auditory Image Movement Trajectories under Conditions of Direct Nonsimultaneous Masking

The authors studied fused auditory image (FAI) movement trajectories under conditions of direct nonsimultaneous masking. This movement was created by a gradual change in a dichotically presented series of clicks with interaural differences in stimulation from 0 to ±700 s or from ±700 to 0 s. Binaurally presented transmissions of wide-band noise served as maskers. The location and length of the trajectories were evaluated without a masker and with five values of the time lag between the signal beginning and masker end. When the test signal duration was 200 ms, the length of the trajectories was 33–44° without a masker. In the first test group, this trajectory lay close to the median line of the head without a masker (irrespective of the movement direction) and moved away from it under masking conditions. When the FAI moved from the median line towards the right or left ear, the initial part of the trajectory was masked; when the movement direction was opposite, the final part was masked. In the second group, the trajectories were located near the ears when the FAI moved from either ear and shifted towards the median line as a result of masking. When the movement direction was opposite, they were close to the median line and shifted towards the ear under masking conditions. When the FAI moved along all trajectories, their initial parts were masked.     

The Influence of High-Frequency Envelope Information on Low-Frequency Vowel Identification in Noise

Vowel identification in noise using consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) logatomes was used to investigate a possible interplay of speech information from different frequency regions. It was hypothesized that the periodicity conveyed by the temporal envelope of a high frequency stimulus can enhance the use of the information carried by auditory channels in the low-frequency region that share the same periodicity. It was further hypothesized that this acts as a strobe-like mechanism and would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for the voiced parts of the CVCs. In a first experiment, different high-frequency cues were provided to test this hypothesis, whereas a second experiment examined more closely the role of amplitude modulations and intact phase information within the high-frequency region (4–8 kHz). CVCs were either natural or vocoded speech (both limited to a low-pass cutoff-frequency of 2.5 kHz) and were presented in stationary 3-kHz low-pass filtered masking noise. The experimental results did not support the hypothesized use of periodicity information for aiding low-frequency perception.     

Binaural masking and sensitivity to interaural delay in the inferior colliculus.

The binaural masking level difference (BMLD) is a psychophysical effect whereby signals masked by a noise at one ear become unmasked by sounds reaching the other. BMLD effects are largest at low frequencies where they depend on signal phase, suggesting that part of the physiological mechanism responsible for the BMLD resides in cells that are sensitive to interaural time disparities. We have investigated a physiological basis for unmasking in the responses of delay-sensitive cells in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus in anaesthetized guinea pigs. The masking effects of a binaurally presented noise, as a function of the masker delay, were quantified by measuring the number of discharges synchronized to the signal, and by measuring the masked threshold. The noise level for masking was lowest at the best delay for the noise. The mean magnitude of the unmasking across our neural population was similar to the human psychophysical BMLD under the same signal and masker conditions.     

Binaural disparity cues available to the barn owl for sound localization

1. Bilateral recording of cochlear potentials was used to measure the variations in interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural intensity differences (IIDs) as a free-field auditory stimulus was moved to different positions around a barn owl's head. 2. ITD varied smoothly with stimulus azimuth across a broad frequency range. 3. ITD varied minimally with stimulus elevation, except at extreme angles from the horizontal. 4. IID varied with both stimulus elevation and stimulus azimuth. Lower frequencies were more sensitive to variations in azimuth, whereas higher frequencies were more sensitive to variations in elevation. 5. The loci of spatial coordinates that form iso-IID contours and iso-ITD contours form a non-orthogonal grid that relates binaural disparity cues to sound location.     

Superposition of masking releases

We are constantly exposed to a mixture of sounds of which only few are important to consider. In order to improve detectability and to segregate important sounds from less important sounds, the auditory system uses different aspects of natural sound sources. Among these are (a) its specific location and (b) synchronous envelope fluctuations in different frequency regions. Such a comodulation of different frequency bands facilitates the detection of tones in noise, a phenomenon known as comodulation masking release (CMR). Physiological as well as psychoacoustical studies usually investigate only one of these strategies to segregate sounds. Here we present psychoacoustical data on CMR for various virtual locations of the signal by varying its interaural phase difference (IPD). The results indicate that the masking release in conditions with binaural (interaural phase differences) and across-frequency (synchronous envelope fluctuations, i.e. comodulation) cues present is equal to the sum of the masking releases for each of the cues separately. Data and model predictions with a simplified model of the auditory system indicate an independent and serial processing of binaural cues and monaural across-frequency cues, maximizing the benefits from the envelope comparison across frequency and the comparison of fine structure across ears.

Evidence that adaptation of suppression cannot account for auditory enhancement or enhanced forward masking.

Delaying the onset of a signal relative to the onset of a simultaneous notched masker often improves the ability of listeners to 'hear out' the signal at both threshold and suprathreshold levels. Viemeister & Bacon (J. acoust. Soc. Am., 71, 1502-1507 (1982)) suggested that such auditory enhancement effects could be accounted for if the suppression produced by the masker on the signal frequency adapted, thereby releasing the signal from suppression. In support of their hypothesis, Viemeister & Bacon reported that a masker preceded by an enhancer having no component at the signal frequency produced more forward masking than did the masker by itself. Here evidence is provided from five new experiments showing that adaptation of psychophysical two-tone suppression is inadequate to account either for auditory enhancement effects or for the enhanced forward masking demonstrated by Viemeister & Bacon.     

Attenuation of vibrotactile spatial summation.

Masked and quiet thresholds at several frequencies of vibratory stimuli were measured as a function of contactor area. The test site was the left index finger; the masking site was the left little finger. The quiet threshold data were consistent with previous investigations: Low-frequency stimuli showed no spatial summation, whereas high-frequency stimuli did. In the presence of a masker, spatial summation was reduced or eliminated for high-frequency stimuli, i.e., the masked threshold was, under some conditions, independent of contactor area. Low-frequency stimuli continued to show no spatial summation in the presence of a masker. The attenuation of spatial summation appears to be a direct function of the intensity of the masking stimulus. Additional measurements with the left thenar eminence as the test site showed that spatial summation could be attenuated by a masker placed on a contralateral body site. The implications of the results for quantifying the effectiveness of a masking stimulus, for the duplex mechanoreceptor hypothesis, and for the nature of spatial summation on the skin are discussed.     

Hearing Sensitivity to Shifts of Rippled-Spectrum Sound Signals in Masking Noise

The goal of the study was to enlarge knowledge of discrimination of complex sound signals by the auditory system in masking noise. For that, influence of masking noise on detection of shift of rippled spectrum was studied in normal listeners. The signal was a shift of ripple phase within a 0.5-oct wide rippled spectrum centered at 2 kHz. The ripples were frequency-proportional (throughout the band, ripple spacing was a constant proportion of the ripple center frequency). Simultaneous masker was a 0.5-oct noise below-, on-, or above the signal band. Both the low-frequency (center frequency 1 kHz) and on-frequency (the same center frequency as for the signal) maskers increased the thresholds for detecting ripple phase shift. However, the threshold dependence on the masker level was different for these two maskers. For the on-frequency masker, the masking effect primarily depended on the masker/signal ratio: the threshold steeply increased at a ratio of 5 dB, and no shift was detectable at a ratio of 10 dB. For the low-frequency masker, the masking effect primarily depended on the masker level: the threshold increased at a masker level of 80 dB SPL, and no shift was detectable at a masker level of 90 dB (for a signal level of 50 dB) or 100 dB (for a signal level of 80 dB). The high-frequency masker had little effect. The data were successfully simulated using an excitation-pattern model. In this model, the effect of the on-frequency masker appeared to be primarily due to a decrease of ripple depth. The effect of the low-frequency masker appeared due to widening of the auditory filters at high sound levels.     

诱发性耳声发射的掩蔽

３４例听觉正常受试者（共４８耳）进行疏波短声诱发性耳声发射（ＥＯＡＥ）掩蔽实验,项目包括同侧同时掩蔽、同侧后掩蔽和对倒后掩蔽。同时掩蔽的掩蔽声是稳态白噪声,后掩蔽的掩蔽声是宽带噪声。同侧同时掩蔽强度达３０ｄＢＳＬ时,未观察到对ＥＯＡＥ的掩蔽效应,但对主观听觉感受有掩蔽作用,表明ＥＯＡＥ的客观属性反映听觉行为有其局限性、同侧及对侧后掩蔽出现掩蔽效应时的掩蔽强度分别为３０和５０ｄＢＳＬ,掩蔽阈约分别为５９和６８ｄＢＳＬ。耳蜗的机械特性－非线性或耳蜗内存在的某种功能性的反馈调节系统可能是同侧后掩蔽的作用机理。下行的对侧橄榄耳蜗内侧束对外毛细胞主动收缩的抑制性作用,可有效解释对倒后掩蔽的ＥＯＡＥ变化。