Work

A fast measure of spatial separation for release from masking and its relation to intelligibility

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This study validates a fast measure for spatial release from masking-minimum angular separation (MAS), the smallest spatial separation between a target and two-talker maskers to improve speech intelligibility by 20%. Three psychophysical methods to estimate MAS were compared, including the constant stimuli, adaptive staircase, and progressive tracking, which revealed no significant difference in the estimated threshold on the group level with bootstrapping. Results suggest that the MAS measurement can be expedited using the progressive tracking method without compromising robustness in the threshold estimation. The non-linear relationship between target-masker spatial separation, signal-to-noise ratio, and accuracy is explored.

Source: JASA Express Letters

DOI: 10.1121/10.0035840

Authors: Z. Ellen Peng, Victoria Sweeney

Institution: Boys Town National Research Hospital

Language: English

Topic: Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Awards: G1623809959, CENTER FOR PERCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION IN CHILDREN