Journal article
Masker location uncertainty reveals evidence for suppression of maskers in two-talker contexts
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.130(4), pp.2043-2053
10/2011
PMCID: PMC3206908
PMID: 21973359
Metrics
15 File views/ downloads
39 Record Views
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites
Abstract
In many natural settings, spatial release from masking aids speech intelligibility, especially when there are competing talkers. This paper describes a series of three experiments that investigate the role of prior knowledge of masker location on phoneme identification and spatial release from masking. In contrast to previous work, these experiments use initial stop-consonant identification as a test of target intelligibility to ensure that listeners had little time to switch the focus of spatial attention during the task. The first experiment shows that target phoneme identification was worse when a masker played from an unexpected location (increasing the consonant identification threshold by 2.6 dB) compared to when an energetically very similar and symmetrically located masker came from an expected location. In the second and third experiments, target phoneme identification was worse (increasing target threshold levels by 2.0 and 2.6 dB, respectively) when the target was played unexpectedly on the side from which the masker was expected compared to when the target came from an unexpected, symmetrical location in the hemifield opposite the expected location of the masker. These results support the idea that listeners modulate spatial attention by both focusing resources on the expected target location and withdrawing attentional resources from expected locations of interfering sources.
Details
- Title
- Masker location uncertainty reveals evidence for suppression of maskers in two-talker contexts
- Creators
- Kachina Allen (Author) - University of SydneyDavid Alais (Author) - University of SydneyBarbara Shinn-Cunningham (Author) - Boston UniversitySimon Carlile (Author) - University of Sydney
- Publication Details
- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.130(4), pp.2043-2053
- Publisher
- United States
- Grant note
- R01 DC009477 / NIDCD NIH HHS
- Identifiers
- 991012837099902368
- Academic Unit
- Human Sciences; Faculty of Health; School of Health and Human Sciences
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article