This proposal describes a psychophysical experiment and modeling techniques designed to identify cuesused by human listeners for detection of sounds in noisy environments. Understanding potential detectioncues will help to develop effective signal-processing strategies for hearing aids, cochlear implants, noise-reduction systems, etc., by preserving cues that are vital for detection of sounds of interest. Here apsychophysical tone-in-noise detection experiment is proposed that utilizes prerecorded noise waveforms.The waveforms will be manipulated such that the contributions of temporal fine-structure and temporalenvelope-based cues can be quantified while overall stimulus energy is held constant. Detectionperformance for individual masking waveforms will be characterized under several diotic and binauralconditions. The prerecorded noises will also be used to test critical modeling assumptions under a variety ofstimulus configurations and bandwidths. Modeling efforts will incorporate results from the proposed (andother) experiments in order to predict multiple listeners' abilities and strategies, including identification ofpotential cues for extracting signals from noise waveforms.
