Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Do cochlear mechanisms explain the noise-disruption of the auditory brainstem response to speech?
AU - Nuttall, Helen
AU - Heinrich, Antje
AU - Moore, David
AU - de Boer, Jessica
PY - 2013/5/1
Y1 - 2013/5/1
N2 - In background noise, the timing precision of the auditory brainstem response to speech (speech-ABR) is disrupted and the response latency increases. The severity of the disruption has been correlated with listeners' ability to understand speech-in-noise. To date, although a central mechanism is assumed, the locus of the speech-ABR timing disruption is not clear. The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of different cochlear mechanisms to noise-induced latency increases. A first experiment examined the 'cochlear place' mechanism, by which the latency of the response increases as cochlear origin moves towards lower frequency regions. The results showed that the speech-ABR reflects an average over responses from a broad range of cochlear regions, which respond with substantial relative delays. This implies that cochlear place can potentially have large effects on masked speech-ABR latency. Another mechanism that is known to be involved in noise-induced ABR latency increases is neural adaptation. This is presumed to occur at the inner hair cell-nerve junction and is thought to reflect cochlear masking. Thus, if this mechanism contributes to speech-ABR latency increases in noise, we would expect this contribution to depend on cochlear frequency selectivity and amplification gain. This hypothesis is tested in the second experiment.
AB - In background noise, the timing precision of the auditory brainstem response to speech (speech-ABR) is disrupted and the response latency increases. The severity of the disruption has been correlated with listeners' ability to understand speech-in-noise. To date, although a central mechanism is assumed, the locus of the speech-ABR timing disruption is not clear. The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of different cochlear mechanisms to noise-induced latency increases. A first experiment examined the 'cochlear place' mechanism, by which the latency of the response increases as cochlear origin moves towards lower frequency regions. The results showed that the speech-ABR reflects an average over responses from a broad range of cochlear regions, which respond with substantial relative delays. This implies that cochlear place can potentially have large effects on masked speech-ABR latency. Another mechanism that is known to be involved in noise-induced ABR latency increases is neural adaptation. This is presumed to occur at the inner hair cell-nerve junction and is thought to reflect cochlear masking. Thus, if this mechanism contributes to speech-ABR latency increases in noise, we would expect this contribution to depend on cochlear frequency selectivity and amplification gain. This hypothesis is tested in the second experiment.
U2 - 10.1121/1.4792844
DO - 10.1121/1.4792844
M3 - Journal article
VL - 19
JO - Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics
JF - Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics
SN - 1939-800X
IS - 1
M1 - 050119
ER -