Objective Assessment of Binaural Benefit from Acoustical Treatment in Real Primary School Classrooms.

Providing students with an adequate acoustic environment is crucial for ensuring speech intelligibility in primary school classrooms. Two main approaches to control acoustics in educational facilities consist of reducing background noise and late reverberation. Prediction models for speech intelligibility have been developed and implemented to evaluate the effects of these approaches. In this study, two versions of the Binaural Speech Intelligibility Model (BSIM) were used to predict speech intelligibility in realistic spatial configurations of speakers and listeners, considering binaural aspects. Both versions shared the same binaural processing and speech intelligibility backend processes but differed in the pre-processing of the speech signal. An Italian primary school classroom was characterized in terms of acoustics before (reverberation, T20 = 1.6 ± 0.1 s) and after (T20 = 0.6 ± 0.1 s) an acoustical treatment to compare BSIM predictions to well-established room acoustic measures. With shorter reverberation time, speech clarity and definition improved, as well as speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) (by up to ~6 dB), particularly when the noise source was close to the receiver and an energetic masker was present. Conversely, longer reverberation times resulted (i) in poorer SRTs (by ~11 dB on average) and (ii) in an almost non-existent spatial release from masking at an angle (SRM).

Effects of Gamification on Assessment of Spatial Release From Masking.

PURPOSE: Difficulty understanding speech in noise is a common communication problem. Clinical tests of speech in noise differ considerably from real-world listening and offer patients limited intrinsic motivation to perform well. In order to design a test that captures motivational aspects of real-world communication, this study investigated effects of gamification, or the inclusion of game elements, on a laboratory spatial release from masking test. METHOD: Fifty-four younger adults with normal hearing completed a traditional laboratory and a gamified test of spatial release from masking in counterbalanced order. Masker level adapted based on performance, with the traditional test ending after 10 reversals and the gamified test ending when participants solved a visual puzzle. Target-to-masker ratio thresholds (TMRs) with colocated maskers, separated maskers, and estimates of spatial release were calculated after the 10th reversal for both tests and from the last six reversals of the adaptive track from the gamified test. RESULTS: Thresholds calculated from the 10th reversal indicated no significant differences between the traditional and gamified tests. A learning effect was observed with spatially separated maskers, such that TMRs were better for the second test than the first, regardless of test order. Thresholds calculated from the last six reversals of the gamified test indicated better TMRs in the separated condition compared to the traditional test. CONCLUSIONS: Adding gamified elements to a traditional test of spatial release from masking did not negatively affect test validity or estimates of spatial release. Participants were willing to continue playing the gamified test for an average of 30.2 reversals of the adaptive track. For some listeners, performance in the separated condition continued to improve after the 10th reversal, leading to better TMRs and greater spatial release from masking at the end of the gamified test compared to the traditional test. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22028789.

Do Diacritics Entail an Early Processing Cost in the Absence of Abstract Representations? Evidence from Masked Priming in English.

Using the masked priming technique, word recognition experiments in various languages have shown slower response times for a target word like NEVEU (nephew, in French) when preceded by a diacritical prime like néveu than by the identity prime neveu. The most common account of this effect is linguistic: diacritical and non-diacritical vowels (e.g., é and e) activate different letter representations (e.g., compare neveu /nə.vø/ vs. néveu /ne.vø/). However, another explanation is that the reduced effectiveness of the diacritical primes is merely due to the perceptual salience of accent marks in the first moments of word processing. Here, we designed a masked priming experiment that tested this perceptual salience account by comparing the effectiveness of diacritical versus non-diacritical primes in a language where diacritics have no linguistic value, namely, English (e.g., nórth-NORTH vs. north-NORTH). We found a small but reliable cost due to the diacritical primes, thus revealing that perceptual salience reduced the effectiveness of the primes. However, the effect sizes were substantially smaller than in the experiments in languages with diacritical marks, thus suggesting that the néveu-NEVEU versus neveu-NEVEU difference relies on both linguistic and perceptual sources.

Masking Level Difference: test-retest reliability assessment in normal hearing female university students. / Masking Level Difference: avaliação da confiabilidade teste-reteste em estudantes universitárias normo-ouvintes.

PURPOSE: To verify the test-retest reliability of the Masking Level Difference in normal hearing female university students. METHODS: Prospective descriptive study with 78 young female adults without hearing complaints, submitted to the compact disc version of the Masking Level Difference by Auditec of Saint Louis. The threshold was determined by the difference between signal-to-noise ratios at hearing thresholds found in the antiphasic and homophasic conditions. The test was applied by the same examiner in two moments (test and retest) with an interval of seven to 14 days between them. Inferential statistical analysis included comparison of test and retest situations using Student's t test for paired samples, calculation of the intraclass correlation coefficient and calculation of 95% confidence intervals for signal-to-noise ratios at hearing thresholds found in the antiphasic and homophasic conditions and for masking level difference. RESULTS: The average signal-to-noise ratio at hearing threshold ​​in the homophasic condition was -12.59 dB and -12.46 dB in the Test and Retest situations, respectively, and -21.54 dB and -21.08 dB in the antiphasic condition. The average value ​​in the final Masking Level Difference result was 8.95 dB in the Test and 8.74 dB in the Retest. Intraclass correlation coefficient values ​​obtained were 0.436, 0.625 and 0.577 for homophasic, antiphasic and Masking Level Difference conditions, respectively. CONCLUSION: The Masking Level Difference showed moderate test-retest reliability in normal hearing adults female university students.

OBJETIVO: Verificar a confiabilidade teste-reteste do Masking Level Difference em estudantes universitárias normo-ouvintes. MÉTODO: Estudo prospectivo descritivo com 78 adultos jovens do gênero feminino sem queixas auditivas, submetidas à versão, em compact disc, do Masking Level Difference da Auditec of Saint Louis. O Masking Level Difference foi determinado por meio da diferença entre as relações sinal-ruído nos limiares auditivos encontrados nas condições antifásica e homofásica. O teste foi aplicado pelo mesmo examinador em dois momentos (teste e reteste) com intervalo de sete a 14 dias entre eles. A análise estatística inferencial incluiu comparação das situações teste e reteste por meio do teste t de Student para amostras pareadas, cálculo do coeficiente de correlação intraclasse e dos intervalos de confiança de 95% para as relações sinal/ruído nos limiares auditivos nas condições antifásica e homofásica e para o cálculo do Masking Level Difference. RESULTADOS: A média da relação sinal-ruído no limiar auditivo na condição homofásica foi -12,59 dB e -12,46 dB nas situações teste e reteste, respectivamente, e -21,54 dB e -21,08 dB na condição antifásica. A média do Masking Level Difference foi 8,95 dB no teste e 8,74 dB no reteste. Os coeficientes de correlação intraclasse obtidos foram 0,436, 0,625 e 0,577 para as condições homofásica, antifásica e Masking Level Difference, respectivamente. CONCLUSÃO: O teste Masking Level Difference mostrou grau moderado de confiabilidade teste-reteste em estudantes universitárias normo-ouvintes.

Costs of dynamic cocktail party listening: Investigating the effects of cognitive abilities and hearing impairment.

Situations with multiple competing talkers are especially challenging for listeners with hearing impairment. These "cocktail party" situations can either be static (fixed target talker) or dynamic (changing target talker). Relative to static situations, dynamic listening is typically associated with increased cognitive load and decreased speech recognition ("costs"). This study addressed the role of hearing impairment and cognition in two groups of older listeners with and without hearing loss. In most of the dynamic situations, the costs did not differ between the listener groups. There was no clear evidence that overall costs show an association with the individuals' cognitive abilities.

Parafoveal degradation during reading reduces preview costs only when it is not perceptually distinct.

There is a growing understanding that the parafoveal preview effect during reading may represent a combination of preview benefits and preview costs due to interference from parafoveal masks. It has been suggested that visually degrading the parafoveal masks may reduce their costs, but adult readers were later shown to be highly sensitive to degraded display changes. Four experiments examined how preview benefits and preview costs are influenced by the perception of distinct parafoveal degradation at the target word location. Participants read sentences with four preview types (identity, orthographic, phonological, and letter-mask preview) and two levels of visual degradation (0% vs. 20%). The distinctiveness of the target word degradation was either eliminated by degrading all words in the sentence (Experiments 1a-2a) or remained present, as in previous research (Experiments 1b-2b). Degrading the letter masks resulted in a reduction in preview costs, but only when all words in the sentence were degraded. When degradation at the target word location was perceptually distinct, it induced costs of its own, even for orthographically and phonologically related previews. These results confirm previous reports that traditional parafoveal masks introduce preview costs that overestimate the size of the true benefit. However, they also show that parafoveal degradation has the unintended consequence of introducing additional costs when participants are aware of distinct degradation on the target word. Parafoveal degradation appears to be easily perceived and may temporarily orient attention away from the reading task, thus delaying word processing.

Factors limiting sensitivity to binocular disparity in human vision: Evidence from a noise-masking approach.

Our visual system uses the disparity between the images received by the two eyes to judge three-dimensional distance to surfaces. We can measure this ability by having subjects discriminate the disparity of rendered surfaces. We wanted to know the basis of the individual differences in this ability. We tested 53 adults with normal vision using a relative disparity detection task. Targets were wedge-shaped surfaces formed from random dots. These were presented in either crossed or uncrossed disparity relative to a random dot background. The threshold disparity ranged from 24 arc seconds in the most-able subject to 275 arc seconds in the least-able subject. There was a small advantage for detecting crossed-disparity targets. We used the noise-masking paradigm to partition subject performance into two factors. These were the subject's equivalent internal noise and their processing efficiency. The parameters were estimated by fitting the linear amplifier model. We found both factors contributed to the individual differences in stereoacuity. Within subjects, those showing an advantage for one disparity direction had enhanced efficiency for that direction. Some subjects had a higher equivalent internal noise for one direction that was balanced out by an increased efficiency. Our approach provides a more thorough account of the stereo-ability of our subjects compared with measuring thresholds alone. We present a normative set of results that can be compared with clinical populations.

Impairment of cyclopean surface processing by disparity-defined masking stimuli.

Binocular disparity signals allow for the estimation of three-dimensional shape, even in the absence of monocular depth cues. The perception of such disparity-defined form depends, however, on the linkage of multiple disparity measurements over space. Performance limitations in cyclopean tasks thus inform us about errors arising in disparity measurement and difficulties in the linkage of such measurements. We used a cyclopean orientation discrimination task to examine the perception of disparity-defined form. Participants were presented with random-dot sinusoidal modulations in depth and asked to report whether they were clockwise or counter-clockwise rotated. To assess the effect of different noise structures on measurement and linkage processes, task performance was measured in the presence of binocular, random-dot masks, structured as either antiphase depth sinusoids, or as random distributions of dots in depth. For a fixed number of surface dots, the ratio of mask-to-surface dots was varied to obtain thresholds for orientation discrimination. Antiphase masks were found to be more effective than random depth masks, requiring a lower mask-to-surface dot ratio to inhibit performance. For antiphase masks, performance improved with decreased cyclopean frequency, increased disparity amplitude, and/or an increase in the total number of stimulus dots. Although a cross-correlation model of disparity measurement could account for antiphase mask performance, random depth masking effects were consistent with limitations in relative disparity processing. This suggests that performance is noise-limited for antiphase masks and complexity-limited for random masks. We propose that use of differing mask types may prove effective in understanding these distinct forms of impairment.

Development of the Continuous Number Identification Test (CNIT): feasibility of dynamic assessment of speech intelligibility.

Objective: The present study was motivated by a need for a speech intelligibility test capable of indexing dynamic changes in the environment and adaptive processing in hearing aids. The Continuous Number Identification Test (CNIT) was developed to meet these aims.Design: From one location in the free field, speech was presented in noise (∼2 words/s) with a 100-ms inter-word interval. On average, every fourth word was a target digit and all other words were monosyllabic words. Non-numeric words had a fixed presentation level such that the dominant signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) was held at +6 dB SNR relative to background maskers. To prevent ceiling effects, however, targets were presented at a user-specific SNR, determined by an initial adaptive-tracking procedure that estimated the 79.4% speech reception threshold.Study sample: Ten normal-hearing listeners participated.Results: The CNIT showed comparable psychometric qualities of other established speech tests for long time scales (Exp. 1). Target-location changes did not affect performance on the CNIT (Exp. 2), but the test did show high temporal resolution in assessing sudden changes to SNR (Exp. 3).Conclusions: The CNIT is highly customisable, and the initial experiments tested feasibility of its primary features which set it apart from currently available speech-in-noise tests.

The frequency-following response as an assessment of spatial processing.

Objective: It is important to detect children with difficulties distinguishing speech-in-noise early. Prompt identification may be assisted by an evoked potential. The aims of the present study were: 1) to evaluate the frequency-following response (FFR) as a measure of binaural processing and spatial listening and, 2) to investigate the relationship between the FFR and a behavioural measure of binaural processing and spatial listening. Design: A single group, repeated measures design. The FFR was recorded in two different spatial conditions and amplitudes compared to spatial listening ability. Study Sample: Thirty-two children (aged 6.0 to 13.1 years) with a range of spatial processing abilities as measured behaviourally using the Listening in Spatialised Noise Sentences test (LiSN-S). Results: FFR waveforms were elicited using speech-like stimuli in co-located and separated conditions. A significant (p≤0.005) spatial advantage effect was observed with larger amplitudes in the separated condition. No correlations were observed between FFR amplitude and LiSN-S results. Conclusions: The FFR shows promise as a measure of binaural processing and spatial listening, but could be measuring different processes to those measured by the LiSN-S.

Spectrotemporal window of binaural integration in auditory object formation.

Binaural integration of interaural temporal information is essential for sound source localization and segregation. Current models of binaural interaction have shown that accurate sound localization in the horizontal plane depends on the resolution of phase ambiguous information by across-frequency integration. However, as such models are mostly static, it is not clear how proximate in time binaural events in different frequency channels should occur to form an auditory object with a unique lateral position. The present study examined the spectrotemporal window required for effective integration of binaural cues across frequency to form the perception of a stationary position. In Experiment 1, listeners judged whether dichotic frequency-modulated (FM) sweeps with a constant large nominal interaural delay (1500 µs), whose perceived laterality was ambiguous depending on the sweep rate (1500, 3000, 6000, and 12,000 Hz/s), produced a percept of continuous motion or a stationary image. Motion detection performance, indexed by d-prime (d') values, showed a clear effect of sweep rate, with auditory motion effects most pronounced for low sweep rates, and a punctate stationary image at high rates. Experiment 2 examined the effect of modulation rate (0.5, 3, 20, and 50 Hz) on lateralizing sinusoidally frequency-modulated (SFM) tones to confirm the effect of sweep rate on motion detection, independent of signal duration. Lateralization accuracy increased with increasing modulation rate up to 20 Hz and saturated at 50 Hz, with poorest performance occurring below 3 Hz depending on modulator phase. Using the transition point where percepts changed from motion to stationary images, we estimated a spectrotemporal integration window of approximately 150 ms per octave required for effective integration of interaural temporal cues across frequency channels. A Monte Carlo simulation based on a cross-correlation model of binaural interaction predicted 90% of the variance on perceptual motion detection performance as a function of FM sweep rate. Findings suggest that the rate of frequency channel convergence of binaural cues is essential to binaural lateralization.

Assessment of speech recognition abilities in quiet and in noise: a comparison between self-administered home testing and testing in the clinic for adult cochlear implant users.

Self speech recognition tests in quiet and noise at home are compared to the standard tests performed in the clinic. Potential effects of stimuli presentation modes (loudspeaker or audio cable) and assessment (clinician or self-assessment at home) on test results were investigated. Speech recognition in quiet was assessed using the standard Dutch test with monosyllabic words. Speech recognition in noise was assessed with the digits-in-noise test. Sixteen experienced CI users (aged between 44 and 83 years) participated. No significant difference was observed in speech recognition in quiet between and presentation modes. Speech recognition in noise was significantly better with the audio cable than with the loudspeaker. There was no significant difference in speech recognition in quiet at 65 dB and in speech recognition in noise between self-assessment at home and testing in the clinic. At 55 dB, speech recognition assessed at home was slightly but significantly better than that assessed in the clinic. The results demonstrate that it is feasible for experienced CI users to perform self-administered speech recognition tests at home. Self-assessment by CI users of speech recognition in quiet and noise within the home environment could serve as an alternative to the tests performed in the clinic.

Construction and evaluation of the Mandarin Chinese matrix (CMNmatrix) sentence test for the assessment of speech recognition in noise.

OBJECTIVE: Development of the Mandarin Chinese matrix (CMNmatrix) sentence test for speech intelligibility measurements in noise according to the international standard procedure. DESIGN: A 50-word base matrix representing the distribution of phonemes and lexical tones of spoken Mandarin was established. Hundred sentences capturing all the co-articulations of two consecutive words were recorded. Word-specific speech recognition functions, speech reception thresholds (SRT: signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), that provides 50% speech intelligibility) and slopes were obtained from measurements at fixed SNRs. The speech material was homogenised in intelligibility by applying level corrections up to ± 2 dB. Subsequently, the CMNmatrix test was evaluated, the comparability of test lists was measured at two fixed SNRs. To investigate the training effect and establish the reference data, speech recognition was measured adaptively. STUDY SAMPLE: Overall, the study sample contained 80 normal-hearing native Mandarin-speaking listeners. RESULTS: Multi-centre evaluation measurements confirmed that test lists are equivalent in intelligibility, with a mean SRT of -10.1 ± 0.1 dB SNR and a slope of 13.1 ± 0.9 %/dB. The reference SRT is -9.3 ± 0.8 and -11.2 ± 1.2 dB SNR for the open- and closed-set response format, respectively. CONCLUSION: The CMNmatrix test is suitable for accurate and internationally comparable speech recognition measurements in noise.

Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren: environmental analysis. / Masking Level Difference em escolares: análises ambientais.

PURPOSE: To investigate the auditory ability of selective attention in the school population and to identify reference values to the age group from seven to ten years old through the Masking Level Difference Test, and to identify if the parents' schooling, as well as the family income can influence the test results. METHODS: Thirty-one schoolchildren who match the eligibility criteria attended the study, being 20 female and 11 male. An anamnesis was conducted to question the familiar income and the schooling of the children´s parents; we also performed visual inspection of the External Acoustic Meatus, Pure Tone Audiometry, Speech Audiometry, Acoustic Immittance Measures, Dichotic Digits Test and Masking Level Difference test. RESULTS: The mean age of the individuals was 8.67 years. There were no observed differences between genders and between the evaluated ages in the MLD performance. There was no relation between the parents' schooling and the average monthly income with the performance of the children in MLD Test. The MLD mean was 7.65 dB and standard deviation of 2.51 dB. CONCLUSION: The Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren from seven to ten years old is 7.65 dB and is independent of the gender, parents' schooling and the average monthly income of the schoolchild.

OBJETIVO: Pesquisar a habilidade auditiva de atenção seletiva na população escolar e identificar valores de referência para a faixa etária de sete a dez anos por meio do teste Masking Level Difference, além de identificar se a escolaridade dos pais, bem como a renda familiar, pode influenciar os resultados do teste. MÉTODO: Participaram do estudo 31 escolares que se encaixaram nos critérios de elegibilidade da pesquisa, sendo 20 do gênero feminino e 11 do gênero masculino. Realizou-se anamnese para questionamento da renda familiar e escolaridade dos pais do escolar, inspeção visual do meato acústico externo, audiometria tonal liminar, logoaudiometria, medidas de imitância acústica, teste Dicótico de Dígitos e teste Masking Level Difference. RESULTADOS: A idade média dos indivíduos foi de 8,67 anos. Não foi observada diferença entre os gêneros e entre as idades avaliadas, no desempenho do MLD. Não houve relação entre a escolaridade dos pais e a renda mensal média com o desempenho das crianças no MLD. A média do MLD foi de 7,65 dB, com desvio padrão de 2,51 dB. CONCLUSÃO: O Masking Level Difference em escolares de sete a dez anos é de 7,65 dB e independe do gênero, do nível de escolaridade dos pais ou da renda mensal média da família do escolar.

Assessment of hearing aid algorithms using a master hearing aid: the influence of hearing aid experience on the relationship between speech recognition and cognitive capacity.

OBJECTIVES: Model-based hearing aid development considers the assessment of speech recognition using a master hearing aid (MHA). It is known that aided speech recognition in noise is related to cognitive factors such as working memory capacity (WMC). This relationship might be mediated by hearing aid experience (HAE). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship of WMC and speech recognition with a MHA for listeners with different HAE. DESIGN: Using the MHA, unaided and aided 80% speech recognition thresholds in noise were determined. Individual WMC capacity was assed using the Verbal Learning and Memory Test (VLMT) and the Reading Span Test (RST). STUDY SAMPLE: Forty-nine hearing aid users with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss divided into three groups differing in HAE. RESULTS: Whereas unaided speech recognition did not show a significant relationship with WMC, a significant correlation could be observed between WMC and aided speech recognition. However, this only applied to listeners with HAE of up to approximately three years, and a consistent weakening of the correlation could be observed with more experience. CONCLUSIONS: Speech recognition scores obtained in acute experiments with an MHA are less influenced by individual cognitive capacity when experienced HA users are taken into account.

Audiological Assessment of Word Recognition Skills in Persons With Aphasia.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of persons with aphasia, with and without hearing loss, to complete a commonly used open-set word recognition test that requires a verbal response. Furthermore, phonotactic probabilities and neighborhood densities of word recognition errors were assessed to explore potential underlying linguistic complexities that might differentially influence performance among groups. METHOD: Four groups of adult participants were tested: participants with no brain injury with normal hearing, participants with no brain injury with hearing loss, participants with brain injury with aphasia and normal hearing, and participants with brain injury with aphasia and hearing loss. The Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6; Tillman & Carhart, 1966) was administered. Those participants who were unable to respond orally (repeating words as heard) were assessed with the Picture Identification Task (Wilson & Antablin, 1980), permitting a picture-pointing response instead. Error patterns from the NU-6 were assessed to determine whether phonotactic probability influenced performance. RESULTS: All participants with no brain injury and 72.7% of the participants with aphasia (24 out of 33) completed the NU-6. Furthermore, all participants who were unable to complete the NU-6 were able to complete the Picture Identification Task. There were significant group differences on NU-6 performance. The 2 groups with normal hearing had significantly higher scores than the 2 groups with hearing loss, but the 2 groups with normal hearing and the 2 groups with hearing loss did not differ from one another, implying that their performance was largely determined by hearing loss rather than by brain injury or aphasia. The neighborhood density, but not phonotactic probabilities, of the participants' errors differed across groups with and without aphasia. CONCLUSIONS: Because the vast majority of the participants with aphasia examined could be tested readily using an instrument such as the NU-6, clinicians should not be reticent to use this test if patients are able to repeat single words, but routine use of alternative tests is encouraged for populations of people with brain injuries.

Target meta-awareness is a necessary condition for physiological responses to masked emotional faces: Evidence from combined skin conductance and heart rate assessment.

Much heated debate surrounds the extent to which we can process emotional stimuli without awareness. In particular the extent to which masked emotional faces can elicit changes in physiology measurements, such as heart rate and skin conductance responses, has produced controversial findings. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether briefly presented faces can elicit physiological changes and, specifically, whether this is due to unconscious processing. We measured and adjusted for individual differences in the detection threshold using both receiver operating characteristics and hit rates. For this we also used a strict Bayesian assessment of participant thresholds. We then measured physiological responses to threshold adjusted emotional faces and for hits, misses and post-binary subdivisions of target meta-awareness. Our findings based on receiver operating characteristics revealed that, when faces were successfully masked there were no significant physiological differences in response to stimuli with different emotional connotations. In contrast, when targets were masked based on hit rates we did find physiological responses to masked emotional faces. With further analysis we found that this effect was specific to correct detection of angry and fearful faces and that increases in experienced arousal were associated with higher confidence ratings for correct detection of these stimuli. Collectively, our results do not support the notion of unconscious processing when using markers of physiological processes. Rather they suggest that target meta-awareness is a necessary condition for - and possibly determined by - physiological changes in response to masked emotional faces.

What are the costs of degraded parafoveal previews during silent reading?

It has been suggested that the preview benefit effect is actually a combination of preview benefit and preview costs. Marx et al. (2015) proposed that visually degrading the parafoveal preview reduces the costs associated with traditional parafoveal letter masks used in the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975), thus leading to a more neutral baseline. We report 2 experiments of skilled adults reading silently. In Experiment 1, we found no compelling evidence that degraded previews reduced processing costs associated with traditional letter masks. Moreover, participants were highly sensitive to detecting degraded display changes. Experiment 2 used the boundary detection paradigm (Slattery, Angele, & Rayner, 2011) to explore whether participants were capable of detecting actual letter changes or if they were responding purely to changes in degradation. Half of the participants were instructed to respond to any noticed display changes; the other half were instructed to respond only to changes in letter identities. Participants were highly sensitive to degraded changes. In fact, these changes were so apparent that they reduced the sensitivity to letter masks. In the context of the model proposed by Angele, Slattery, and Rayner (2016), we suggest that degraded previews interfere with the attentional stage, as evidenced by the general lack of foveal load effects. In summary, we found that increasingly degrading parafoveal letter masks does not reduce their processing costs in adults, but that both degraded valid and invalid previews introduce additional costs in terms of greater display change awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record

Masking Level Difference em escolares: análises ambientais / Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren: environmental analysis

RESUMO Objetivo Pesquisar a habilidade auditiva de atenção seletiva na população escolar e identificar valores de referência para a faixa etária de sete a dez anos por meio do teste Masking Level Difference, além de identificar se a escolaridade dos pais, bem como a renda familiar, pode influenciar os resultados do teste. Método Participaram do estudo 31 escolares que se encaixaram nos critérios de elegibilidade da pesquisa, sendo 20 do gênero feminino e 11 do gênero masculino. Realizou-se anamnese para questionamento da renda familiar e escolaridade dos pais do escolar, inspeção visual do meato acústico externo, audiometria tonal liminar, logoaudiometria, medidas de imitância acústica, teste Dicótico de Dígitos e teste Masking Level Difference. Resultados A idade média dos indivíduos foi de 8,67 anos. Não foi observada diferença entre os gêneros e entre as idades avaliadas, no desempenho do MLD. Não houve relação entre a escolaridade dos pais e a renda mensal média com o desempenho das crianças no MLD. A média do MLD foi de 7,65 dB, com desvio padrão de 2,51 dB. Conclusão O Masking Level Difference em escolares de sete a dez anos é de 7,65 dB e independe do gênero, do nível de escolaridade dos pais ou da renda mensal média da família do escolar.

ABSTRACT Purpose To investigate the auditory ability of selective attention in the school population and to identify reference values to the age group from seven to ten years old through the Masking Level Difference Test, and to identify if the parents' schooling, as well as the family income can influence the test results. Methods Thirty-one schoolchildren who match the eligibility criteria attended the study, being 20 female and 11 male. An anamnesis was conducted to question the familiar income and the schooling of the children´s parents; we also performed visual inspection of the External Acoustic Meatus, Pure Tone Audiometry, Speech Audiometry, Acoustic Immittance Measures, Dichotic Digits Test and Masking Level Difference test. Results The mean age of the individuals was 8.67 years. There were no observed differences between genders and between the evaluated ages in the MLD performance. There was no relation between the parents' schooling and the average monthly income with the performance of the children in MLD Test. The MLD mean was 7.65 dB and standard deviation of 2.51 dB. Conclusion The Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren from seven to ten years old is 7.65 dB and is independent of the gender, parents' schooling and the average monthly income of the schoolchild.

Assessment of discrimination ability in ipsilateral and contralateral ears with a unilateral bone-anchored hearing system.

This study aimed to determine the speech discriminatory ability of the contralateral ear of users of a unilateral bone-anchored hearing system (BAHS). The Oticon Medical Ponto Pro/Ponto Pro Power device brand was used for all patients. Five BAHS users (3 men, 2 women) participated in the study. Pure-tone air-conduction thresholds at 250 to 6,000 Hz, masked and unmasked bone-conduction thresholds at 250 to 4,000 Hz, and participants' speech discrimination scores in both ears were determined. Speech discrimination tests were carried out in a silent environment with monosyllabic and trisyllabic word lists. After this, the ipsilateral ear (the BAHS side) was masked with wide-band noise using an insert earphone, and the word tests were repeated. A mild decrease was observed in monosyllabic words in ipsilateral masking; however, this was not found to be statistically significant. Conversely, a decrease was not observed in the repetition of trisyllabic words in any participants, even under high-level ipsilateral masking. These results suggested that unilateral BAHS application could prevent or reduce the neural deprivation of the contralateral ear.