Monaural detection with a contralateral cue in normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired listeners

Abstract

Monaural detection with and without a contralateral cue (MDCC) in normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired listeners is investigated. The signals and cues are 1/3‐octave noise bands centered at 500 and 4000 Hz, and the masker is a 4500‐Hz low‐pass noise. The level of the masker is 77 dB SPL for the normal‐hearing listeners and 25 dB SL for the hearing‐impaired listeners; when present, the cue is at − 7 dB relative to the masker. Psychometric functions for three normal‐hearing subjects and three subjects with moderate‐to‐severe, bilateral sensorineural hearing losses have been measured. The normal‐hearing listeners show a 2–8 dB cued advantage at 503 Hz and a 1–11 dB cued disadvantage at 4000 Hz. Like the normal‐hearing listeners, the hearing‐impaired subjects have poorer performance at 4000 Hz when the cue is present. At 500 Hz, however, one of the hearing‐impaired listeners shows a 5 dB cued advantage, comparable to normal, while the other hearing‐impaired subjects have poorer detection when the cue is present. Results of these MDCC measurements will be compared with the performance of these hearing‐impaired listeners on other tests of binaural detection and discrimination. [Work supported by DRF.]