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		Spectral and Temporal Processing Deficits and Poor Pitch Perception in Sensorineural Hearing Impairment: Baseline Measurements Joshua G. Bernstein Speech and Hearing Bioscience & Technology Program Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology Andrew J. Oxenham MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics
		The pitch of a sound stimulus, such as speech, is an important attribute enabling the sound to be heard out in a complex noisy environment. Thus, the deterioration of pitch perception that accompanies sensorineural hearing impairment may contribute to poor speech intelligibility in noisy environments. This research seeks to investigate the spectral and temporal processes that mediate the perception of pitch, and determine to what extent deficits in these processes contribute to the deterioration of pitch perception associated with sensorineural hearing impairment. Baseline measurements were performed in normal-hearing listeners. The smallest detectable change (the difference limen or DL) in fundamental frequency (f0) was measured as a function of f0 for harmonic complexes bandpass-filtered into low- and high-frequency regions. Complexes containing only low-order harmonics yielded small DLs (~1%), whereas those containing only high-order harmonics yielded large DLs (5-15%), with the transition occurring at approximately the 10th harmonic. The harmonic number of this transition will be measured in hearing-impaired listeners and compared to the baseline measurement in normal-hearing listeners in order to determine to what extent a spectral processing deficit contributes to the deterioration of pitch. Similarly, the DLs for complexes containing high-order harmonics will be compared in the two groups in order to determine to what extent a temporal processing deficit contributes to poor pitch processing.
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(last modified 3/12/03)