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The Effect of Interaural Fluctuation Rate on Correlation Change Discrimination

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Abstract

While bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) provide some binaural benefits, these benefits are limited compared to those observed in normal-hearing (NH) listeners. The large frequency-to-electrode allocation bandwidths (BWs) in CIs compared to auditory filter BWs in NH listeners increases the interaural fluctuation rate available for binaural unmasking, which may limit binaural benefits. The purpose of this work was to investigate the effect of interaural fluctuation rate on correlation change discrimination and binaural masking-level differences in NH listeners presented a CI simulation using a pulsed-sine vocoder. In experiment 1, correlation-change just-noticeable differences (JNDs) and tone-in-noise thresholds were measured for narrowband noises with different BWs and center frequencies (CFs). The results suggest that the BW, CF, and/or interaural fluctuation rate are important factors for correlation change discrimination. In experiment 2, the interaural fluctuation rate was systematically varied and dissociated from changes in BW and CF by using a pulsed-sine vocoder. Results indicated that the interaural fluctuation rate did not affect correlation change JNDs for correlated reference noises; however, slow interaural fluctuations increased correlation change JNDs for uncorrelated reference noises. In experiment 3, the BW, CF, and vocoder pulse rate were varied while interaural fluctuation rate was held constant. JNDs increased for increasing BW and decreased for increasing CF. In summary, relatively fast interaural fluctuation rates are not detrimental for detecting changes in interaural correlation. Thus, limiting factors to binaural benefits in CI listeners could be a result of other temporal and/or spectral deficiencies from electrical stimulation.

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Notes

  1. Using vector diagrams (e.g., Zurek 1991), the interaural correlation between two noise vectors is the projection of one vector on the other. In other words, the interaural correlation ρ is the similarity of two noises. The perpendicular or orthogonal component that we call α is the dissimilarity of the two noises. We have used α as the scale in the adaptive procedure because the magnitude of the IPD and ILD fluctuations, which may be related to detecting changes in correlation, vary nearly linearly in terms of α, not p (Goupell 2010).

  2. For an off-frequency target and masking configuration, the temporal aspects of the combination of target and masker are dependent on SNR, masker BW, and frequency separation of target and masker. We recommend the vector diagram analysis of the stimuli in Henning et al. (2007) for a better understanding of this complex relationship.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Corey Stoelb, Mitch Mostardi, Nick Liimatta, Garrison Draves, and Abbey Baus for help collecting data. Corey Stoelb was also vital in organization and plotting of the data. This work was supported by NIH Grant K99/R00 DC010206 (Goupell), R01 DC003083 (Litovsky), and P30 HD03352 (Waisman Center core grant).

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  1. Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Matthew J. Goupell

  2. Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI, 53705, USA

    Ruth Y. Litovsky

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  1. Matthew J. Goupell
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Correspondence to Matthew J. Goupell.

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Goupell, M.J., Litovsky, R.Y. The Effect of Interaural Fluctuation Rate on Correlation Change Discrimination. JARO 15, 115–129 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-013-0426-8

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