Summation bandwidths at threshold in normal and hearing-impaired listeners

Abstract

The bandwidths for summation at threshold were measured for subjects with normal hearing and subjects with sensorineural hearing loss. Thresholds in quiet and in the presence of a masking noise were measured for complex stimuli consisting of 1 to 40 pure-tone components spaced 20 Hz apart. The single component condition consisted of a single pure tone at 1100 Hz; additional components were added below this frequency, in a replication of the Gässler [Acustica 4, 408-414 (1954)] procedure. For the normal subjects, thresholds increased approximately 3 dB per doubling of bandwidth for signal bandwidths exceeding the critical bandwidth. This slope was less for the hearing-impaired subjects. Summation bandwidths, as estimated from two-line fits, were wider for the hearing-impaired than for the normal subjects. These findings provide evidence that hearing-impaired subjects integrate sound energy over a wider-than-normal frequency range for the detection of complex signals. A second experiment used stimuli similar to those of Spiegel [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 66, 1356-1363 (1979)], and added components both above and below the frequency of the initial component. Using these stimuli, the slope of the threshold increase beyond the critical bandwidth was approximately 1.5 dB per doubling of bandwidth, thus replicating the Spiegel (1979) experiment. It is concluded that the differences between the Gässler (1954) and Spiegel (1979) studies were due to the different frequency content of the stimuli used in each study. Based upon the present results, it would appear that the slope of threshold increase is dependent upon the direction of signal expansion, and the size of the critical bands into which the signal is expanded.