Children are expected to listen and learn in very complex acoustic environments. Nonetheless, little is known about how young listeners are affected by the 'cocktail party' phenomenon. An important component of the cocktail party problem is the advantage created by spatial separation of the target and interfering sounds. One way to measure this effect, known as spatial release from masking (SRM), is to compare speech intelligibility when the target and interferers are coincident in space versus spatially separated. Although SRM in children has been recently demonstrated (Litovsky, 2003; Johnstone and Litovsky, 2003), the acoustic and spatial environments were highly predictable. The proposed work will investigate masking and SRM under more realistic scenarios. Speech intelligibility will be studied when the spatial location of the interferers is fixed and the type of interferers varies probabilistically. It is hypothesized that masking and SRM will increase when informational masking is maximized.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31)
Project #
1F31DC006785-01A1
Application #
6886574
Study Section
Communication Disorders Review Committee (CDRC)
Program Officer
Sklare, Dan
Project Start
2004-09-17
Project End
2006-09-16
Budget Start
2004-09-17
Budget End
2005-09-16
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$30,682
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Wisconsin Madison
Department
Physiology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
161202122
City
Madison
State
WI
Country
United States
Zip Code
53715