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Contribution of High-Frequency Information to the Acceptance of Background Noise in Listeners With Normal and Impaired Hearing

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Steven G. Madix

Louisiana Tech University, Ruston

James W. Thelin and Kristie W. Johnston

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Contact author: Patrick N. Plyler, Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Tennessee, 578 South Stadium Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-0740. E-mail: pplyler{at}utk.edu.

Purpose: To determine whether information beyond 2.0 kHz affected the acceptance of background noise in listeners with normal and/or impaired hearing.

Method: Speech stimuli (Arizona Travelogue) and multitalker babble were low-pass filtered at cutoff frequencies of 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0 kHz and presented using an adaptive paradigm to determine the most comfortable level (MCL) and acceptable noise level (ANL) for 4 experimental conditions (unfiltered, 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0 kHz) for each listener.

Results: MCL for listening to speech in quiet was significantly increased when the speech stimuli were low-pass filtered at 2.0 kHz relative to the unfiltered and 6.0-kHz conditions. Acceptance of background noise was significantly poorer when the speech and noise stimuli were low-pass filtered at 2.0 kHz relative to the 6.0-kHz condition. Listeners with impaired hearing sensitivity had significantly greater MCL values than listeners with normal hearing, but ANL values were not significantly affected by the hearing sensitivity of the listener.

Conclusions: Information beyond 2.0 kHz significantly affected MCL and ANL values in both listeners with normal hearing and impaired hearing; however, effects for both the MCL and ANL measurements were small and may not be significant clinically.

Key Words: acceptable noise level, background noise level, sensorineural hearing loss