Informational masking of speech by time-varying competitors: Effects of frequency region and number of interfering formants

Abstract

This study explored the extent to which informational masking of speech depends on the frequency region and number of extraneous formants in an interferer. Target formants—monotonized three-formant (F1+F2+F3) analogues of natural sentences—were presented monaurally, with target ear assigned randomly on each trial. Interferers were presented contralaterally. In experiment 1, single-formant interferers were created using the time-reversed F2 frequency contour and constant amplitude, root-mean-square (RMS)-matched to F2. Interferer center frequency was matched to that of F1, F2, or F3, while maintaining the extent of formant-frequency variation (depth) on a log scale. Adding an interferer lowered intelligibility; the effect of frequency region was small and broadly tuned around F2. In experiment 2, interferers comprised either one formant (F1, the most intense) or all three, created using the time-reversed frequency contours of the corresponding targets and RMS-matched constant amplitudes. Interferer formant-frequency variation was scaled to 0%, 50%, or 100% of the original depth. Increasing the depth of formant-frequency variation and number of formants in the interferer had independent and additive effects. These findings suggest that the impact on intelligibility depends primarily on the overall extent of frequency variation in each interfering formant (up to ∼100% depth) and the number of extraneous formants. I. INTRODUCTION

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5023476
Dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.17036/researchdata.aston.ac.uk.00000309
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
College of Health & Life Sciences > Clinical and Systems Neuroscience
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Optometry > Centre for Vision and Hearing Research
College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Optometry > Vision, Hearing and Language
Additional Information: Copyright: 2018 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Funding: Research Grant No. ES/ N014383/1 from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK)
Publication ISSN: 1520-8524
Last Modified: 11 Mar 2024 08:21
Date Deposited: 16 Feb 2018 08:40
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://asa.scit ... .1121/1.5023476 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2018-02-01
Published Online Date: 2018-02-01
Accepted Date: 2018-01-01
Authors: Roberts, Brian (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-4232-9459)
Summers, Robert J. (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-4857-7354)

Download

[img]

Version: Published Version

License: Creative Commons Attribution

| Preview

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record