The long-range goals of the proposed research are to further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the auditory processing of time-varying stimuli, and to determine how those mechanisms are affected by sensorineural hearing loss. There are two separate but related lines of research. The first line focuses on the detection of brief signals as a function of prior masker stimulation. The underlying mechanisms could play an important role in enhancing newly arriving or intermittent signals, especially those in an on-going background. The temporal effect in simultaneous masking is called the """"""""temporal course of masking"""""""" when it occurs with off-frequency tonal maskers, and """"""""overshoot"""""""" when it occurs with broadband noise maskers. The goals of the first line of research are to (1) gain a better understanding of the processing underlying these two temporal effects, and in particular to test a newly proposed theory that unifies the temporal course of masking and overshoot, and (2) further our understanding of the effects of sensorineural hearing loss on temporal effects in simultaneous masking. The second line of research concentrates on the processing of amplitude modulation. The temporal complexity of these experiments is relevant to the auditory processing underlying the perception of everyday complex sounds such as speech or music. The goals of the second line of research are to (1) further our understanding of how the auditory system processes amplitude modulation in the presence of competing modulation, and to determine to what extent such processing is occurring within a single auditory channel, (2) gain insight into the mechanisms responsible for the recently described effect of frequency on within-and across-channel temporal resolution, (3) relate the processing of amplitude modulation to the processing of speech in time-varying backgrounds, and (4) further our understanding of why individuals with a sensorineural hearing loss often have particular difficulty understanding speech in temporally complex backgrounds.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC001376-07
Application #
2733662
Study Section
Hearing Research Study Section (HAR)
Project Start
1992-07-01
Project End
2001-06-30
Budget Start
1998-07-01
Budget End
1999-06-30
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Arizona State University-Tempe Campus
Department
Other Health Professions
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
188435911
City
Tempe
State
AZ
Country
United States
Zip Code
85287
Apoux, Frederic; Millman, Rebecca E; Viemeister, Neal F et al. (2011) On the mechanisms involved in the recovery of envelope information from temporal fine structure. J Acoust Soc Am 130:273-82
Brown, Christopher A; Bacon, Sid P (2009) Low-frequency speech cues and simulated electric-acoustic hearing. J Acoust Soc Am 125:1658-65
Brown, Christopher A; Bacon, Sid P (2009) Achieving electric-acoustic benefit with a modulated tone. Ear Hear 30:489-93
Apoux, Frederic; Bacon, Sid P (2008) Differential contribution of envelope fluctuations across frequency to consonant identification in quiet. J Acoust Soc Am 123:2792
Millman, Rebecca E; Bacon, Sid P (2008) The influence of spread of excitation on the detection of amplitude modulation imposed on sinusoidal carriers at high levels. J Acoust Soc Am 123:1008-16
Apoux, Frederic; Bacon, Sid P (2008) Selectivity of modulation interference for consonant identification in normal-hearing listeners. J Acoust Soc Am 123:1665-72
Gifford, Rene H; Bacon, Sid P; Williams, Erica J (2007) An examination of speech recognition in a modulated background and of forward masking in younger and older listeners. J Speech Lang Hear Res 50:857-64
Healy, Eric W; Bacon, Sid P (2007) Effect of spectral frequency range and separation on the perception of asynchronous speech. J Acoust Soc Am 121:1691-700
Healy, Eric W; Bacon, Sid P (2006) Measuring the critical band for speech. J Acoust Soc Am 119:1083-91
Gifford, Rene H; Bacon, Sid P (2005) Psychophysical estimates of nonlinear cochlear processing in younger and older listeners. J Acoust Soc Am 118:3823-33

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