Normative data for assessing performance on a rapid, automated test of speech-on-speech masking and spatial release from masking

Abstract

The ability to understand speech in the presence of competing sound sources is essential to communication success. This task is difficult for listeners with healthy auditory systems, but becomes substantially more difficult as listeners age and experience various insults to the system. Our laboratory has developed a rapid, automated method of measuring the relative ability to perform a standard laboratory version of this task, which has been applied to a large set of spatial separations between 0 and 135 degrees, and a range of levels and bandwidths. Performance has been obtained in over 100 listeners varying in age and hearing ability between one and fifteen times over the course of four years. We have examined both the reliability of this test, by comparing how performance changed across test sessions with the same acoustical conditions (less than 1 dB on average), and the relative influences of age and hearing loss at various separations. Normative functions based on over 100 listeners are available for a colocated control condition, a spatial separation of 45 degrees, and the difference between the two (spatial release from masking). Normative functions take into account both age, between 18 and 80 years, and moderate hearing loss in the standard audiometric frequencies. A calibrated version of the test is freely available for use on an iPad.