Effects of spectral smearing and temporal fine structure degradation on speech masking release

2009 ◽  
Vol 125 (6) ◽  
pp. 4023-4033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Gnansia ◽  
Vincent Péan ◽  
Bernard Meyer ◽  
Christian Lorenzi
Keyword(s):  
Fine Structure ◽  
Temporal Fine Structure ◽  
Masking Release ◽  
Structure Degradation ◽  
Spectral Smearing

scholarly journals Senescent Changes in Sensitivity to Binaural Temporal Fine Structure

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 233121651878822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Füllgrabe ◽  
Aleksander P. Sęk ◽  
Brian C. J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Fine Structure ◽  
Temporal Fine Structure

scholarly journals Temporal fine structure influences voicing confusions for consonant identification in multi-talker babble

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vibha Viswanathan ◽  
Barbara G. Shinn-Cunningham ◽  
Michael G. Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Fine Structure ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Temporal Fine Structure ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Listening Environments ◽  
Intact Condition ◽  
Speech Content

To understand the mechanisms of speech perception in everyday listening environments, it is important to elucidate the relative contributions of different acoustics cues in transmitting phonetic content. Previous studies suggest that the energy envelopes of speech convey most speech content, while the temporal fine structure (TFS) can aid in segregating target speech from background noise. Despite the vast literature on TFS and speech intelligibility, the role of TFS in conveying additional speech content over what envelopes convey in complex acoustic scenes is poorly understood. The present study addresses this question using online psychophysical experiments to measure consonant identification in multi-talker babble for intelligibility-matched intact and 64-channel envelope-vocoded stimuli. Consonant confusion patterns revealed that listeners had a greater tendency in the vocoded (versus intact) condition to be biased towards reporting that they heard an unvoiced consonant, despite envelope and place cues being largely preserved. This result was replicated when babble instances were varied across independent experiments, suggesting that TFS conveys important voicing cues over what envelopes convey in multi-talker babble, a masker that is ubiquitous in everyday environments. This finding has implications for assistive listening devices that do not currently provide TFS cues, such as cochlear implants.

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