TY - JOUR
T1 - Uni- and bilateral spectral loudness summation and binaural loudness summation with loudness matching and categorical loudness scaling
AU - van Beurden, Maarten
AU - Boymans, Monique
AU - van Geleuken, Mirjam
AU - Oetting, Dirk
AU - Kollmeier, Birger
AU - Dreschler, Wouter A.
N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by a grant from the Heinsius Houbolt Fund. The authors thank Addy Mols for her participation in the data collection and Stephan Ewert for providing the loudness matching procedure. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of British Society of Audiology, International Society of Audiology, and Nordic Audiological Society.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Objective: Current hearing aid prescription rules assume that spectral loudness summation decreases with hearing impairment and that binaural loudness summation is independent of hearing loss and signal bandwidth. Previous studies have shown that these assumptions might be incorrect. Spectral loudness summation was measured and compared for loudness scaling and loudness matching. Design: In this study, the effect of bandwidth on binaural summation was investigated by comparing loudness perception of low-pass filtered, high-pass filtered, and broadband pink noise at 35 Categorical Units for both unilateral and bilateral presentation. Study sample: Sixteen hearing-impaired listeners. Results: The results show that loudness differences between the three signals are different for bilateral presentation than for unilateral presentation. In specific, binaural loudness summation is larger for the low-pass filtered pink noise than for the high-pass filtered pink noise. Finally, individual variability in loudness perception near loudness discomfort level was found to be very large. Conclusions: Loudness matching is offered as a fast and reliable method to measure individual loudness perception. As discomfort with loud sounds is one of the major problems encountered by hearing aid users, measurement of individual loudness perception could improve hearing aid fitting substantially.
AB - Objective: Current hearing aid prescription rules assume that spectral loudness summation decreases with hearing impairment and that binaural loudness summation is independent of hearing loss and signal bandwidth. Previous studies have shown that these assumptions might be incorrect. Spectral loudness summation was measured and compared for loudness scaling and loudness matching. Design: In this study, the effect of bandwidth on binaural summation was investigated by comparing loudness perception of low-pass filtered, high-pass filtered, and broadband pink noise at 35 Categorical Units for both unilateral and bilateral presentation. Study sample: Sixteen hearing-impaired listeners. Results: The results show that loudness differences between the three signals are different for bilateral presentation than for unilateral presentation. In specific, binaural loudness summation is larger for the low-pass filtered pink noise than for the high-pass filtered pink noise. Finally, individual variability in loudness perception near loudness discomfort level was found to be very large. Conclusions: Loudness matching is offered as a fast and reliable method to measure individual loudness perception. As discomfort with loud sounds is one of the major problems encountered by hearing aid users, measurement of individual loudness perception could improve hearing aid fitting substantially.
KW - Psychoacoustics
KW - binaural loudness summation
KW - hearing aids
KW - loudness perception
KW - spectral loudness summation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094163933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2020.1832263
DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2020.1832263
M3 - Article
C2 - 33100070
SN - 1499-2027
VL - 60
SP - 350
EP - 358
JO - International Journal of Audiology
JF - International Journal of Audiology
IS - 5
ER -