Low-frequency hearing loss: Perception of filtered speech, psychophysical tuning curves, and masking

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Abstract
Four subjects with low‐frequency hearing loss were evaluated to determine whether their responses to low‐frequency stimulation might be the result of stimulation of nerve fibers with higher characteristic frequencies. Two masking paradigms were employed to indirectly investigate the contribution of high‐frequency nerve fibers to the detection of low‐frequency stimuli: (1) masking of a low‐level, fixed‐frequency probe by a variable‐frequency pure‐tone masker (psychophysical tuning curve) and (2) masking of pure‐tones by a high‐level, fixed‐frequency pure‐tone masker. Low‐frequency remote masking by tones and displacements in the tips of tuning curves to higher frequencies were interpreted as evidence that low‐frequency signals near threshold were being detected by high‐frequency fibers in three of the subjects. Three subjects were also tested with high‐pass, low‐pass, and unfiltered speech both in quiet and in the presence of a high‐pass noise masker. Results were interpreted as showing a relatively small contribution of high‐frequency fibers to the perception of low‐frequency speech.

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