Abstract

Many tinnitus patients report difficulties understanding speech in noise or competing talkers, despite having “normal” hearing in terms of audiometric thresholds. The interference caused by tinnitus is more likely central in origin. Release from informational masking (more central in origin) produced by competing speech may further illuminate central interference due to tinnitus. In the present study, masked speech understanding was measured in normal hearing listeners with or without tinnitus. Speech recognition thresholds were measured for target speech in the presence of multi-talker babble or competing speech. For competing speech, speech recognition thresholds were measured for different cue conditions (i.e., with and without target-masker sex differences and/or with and without spatial cues). The present data suggest that tinnitus negatively affected masked speech recognition even in individuals with no measurable hearing loss. Tinnitus severity appeared to especially limit listeners’ ability to segregate competing speech using talker sex differences. The data suggest that increased informational masking via lexical interference may tax tinnitus patients’ central auditory processing resources.

Details

Title
Tinnitus impairs segregation of competing speech in normal-hearing listeners
Author
Liu, Yang Wenyi 1 ; Wang, Bing 1 ; Chen, Bing 1 ; Galvin, John J, III 2 ; Qian-Jie, Fu 3 

 Fudan University, Department of Otology and Skull Base Surgery, Eye Ear Nose and Throat Hospital, NHC Key Laboratory of Hearing Medicine, Shanghai, China (GRID:grid.8547.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 0125 2443) 
 House Ear Institute, Los Angeles, USA (GRID:grid.417670.3) (ISNI:0000 0001 0357 1050) 
 University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, USA (GRID:grid.19006.3e) (ISNI:0000 0000 9632 6718) 
Publication year
2020
Publication date
2020
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2471566744
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.