Informational Masking in Aging and Brain-lesioned Individuals

Auditory stream segregation and informational masking were investigated in brain-lesioned individuals, age-matched controls with no neurological disease, and young college-age students. A psychophysical paradigm known as rhythmic masking release (RMR) was used to examine the ability of participants...

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Published in:Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology 2023-02, Vol.24 (1), p.67-79
Main Authors: Farahbod, Haleh, Rogalsky, Corianne, Keator, Lynsey M., Cai, Julia, Pillay, Sara B., Turner, Katie, LaCroix, Arianna, Fridriksson, Julius, Binder, Jeffrey R., Middlebrooks, John C., Hickok, Gregory, Saberi, Kourosh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Auditory perception
Auditory Threshold
Brain
Computer applications
Hearing
Humans
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Neurobiology
Neurological diseases
Neurosciences
Noise
Otorhinolaryngology
Perceptual Masking
Psychophysics
Research Article
Rhythm
Rhythms
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Summary:Auditory stream segregation and informational masking were investigated in brain-lesioned individuals, age-matched controls with no neurological disease, and young college-age students. A psychophysical paradigm known as rhythmic masking release (RMR) was used to examine the ability of participants to identify a change in the rhythmic sequence of 20-ms Gaussian noise bursts presented through headphones and filtered through generalized head-related transfer functions to produce the percept of an externalized auditory image (i.e., a 3D virtual reality sound). The target rhythm was temporally interleaved with a masker sequence comprising similar noise bursts in a manner that resulted in a uniform sequence with no information remaining about the target rhythm when the target and masker were presented from the same location (an impossible task). Spatially separating the target and masker sequences allowed participants to determine if there was a change in the target rhythm midway during its presentation. RMR thresholds were defined as the minimum spatial separation between target and masker sequences that resulted in 70.7% correct-performance level in a single-interval 2-alternative forced-choice adaptive tracking procedure. The main findings were (1) significantly higher RMR thresholds for individuals with brain lesions (especially those with damage to parietal areas) and (2) a left–right spatial asymmetry in performance for lesion (but not control) participants. These findings contribute to a better understanding of spatiotemporal relations in informational masking and the neural bases of auditory scene analysis.
ISSN:1438-7573
1525-3961
1438-7573
DOI:10.1007/s10162-022-00877-9