Role of fundamental frequency differences in the perceptual separation of competing vowel sounds by listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss

Abstract

This study compared the ability of listeners with normal hearing and listeners with moderate to moderately-severe sensorineural hearing loss to use fundamental frequency differences (delta F0) in the identification of monotically presented simultaneous vowels. Two psychophysical procedures, double vowel identification and masked vowel identification, were used to measure identification performance as a function of delta F0 (0 through 8 semitones) between simultaneous vowels. Performance in the double vowel identification task was measured by the percentage of trials in which listeners correctly identified both vowels in a double vowel. The masked vowel identification task yielded thresholds representing signal-to-noise ratios at which listeners could just identify target vowels in the presence of a masking vowel. In the double vowel identification task, both listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss showed significant delta F0 benefit: Between 0 and 2 semitones, listeners with normal hearing showed an 18.5% average increase in performance; listeners with hearing loss showed a 16.5% average increase. In the masked vowel identification task, both groups showed significant delta F0 benefit. However, the mean benefit associated with delta F0 differences in the masked vowel task was more than twice as large in listeners with normal hearing (9.4 dB) when compared to listeners with hearing loss (4.4 dB), suggesting less delta F0 benefit in listeners with hearing loss. In both tasks, overall performance of listeners with hearing loss was significantly worse than performance of listeners with normal hearing. Possible reasons for reduced delta F0 benefit and decreased overall performance in listeners with hearing loss include reduced audibility of vowel sounds and deficits in spectro-temporal processing.