Predicting performance across different psychoacoustic tasks

Abstract

How likely is it that listeners who are superior on one aural attribute are also superior on a second aural attribute? The ability of listeners was measured on two psychoacoustic tasks: (1) detection of tones in noise and (2) detection of amplitude modulation for masked tone complexes. We tested nine listeners (4 M and 5 F) with clinically normal hearing and an age range of 18-21 years using a transformed up-down method with trial-by-trial feedback, and averaged over three measurements. First we determined absolute thresholds for 500-ms tones. Then, using three levels of tones spanning a 30 dB range, we determined both masked tone detection (F = 1, 2, 4, 8 kHz) and masked three-tone discrimination (same center frequencies) with modulation frequencies of Fm = 3, 30, 300 Hz. We discuss how to analyze the data obtained to determine whether a listener’s performance on a given task can be used to predict performance on other tasks.