Exploring perceptual segregation cues in polyphonic vocal music under normal and impaired hearing

Abstract

Music plays an important role in the lives of many people, but its enjoyment can be compromised by hearing loss. Although the effects of hearing loss on speech are well-studied, its effects on music perception are less well-understood. This study examined normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners’ ability to hear out individual voices within polyphonic music, while varying the number of voices and the level of inharmonicity in each voice. We hypothesized that hearing loss would hinder listeners’ ability to distinguish voices in music due to impaired frequency selectivity and pitch perception but that inharmonicity would impact hearing-impaired listeners less, due to their reduced sensitivity to pitch discrepancies. MIDI-generated female vocal passages with one to five voices and different inharmonicity levels were presented in two tasks: estimating voice count (denumerability) and following a specific voice in the passage. Preliminary results indicate that hearing-impaired listeners struggle more with increasing voices than normal-hearing listeners but are less affected by inharmonicity. These outcomes align with our hypotheses, confirming that hearing loss leads to poorer overall performance and less sensitivity to inharmonicity. [Work supported by NIH grant R01DC005216.]