Recently, it has been observed that the complexity of finite-impulseresponse (FIR) filters using the frequency-response masking technique can be significantly reduced by simultaneously optimizing all the subfilters. In order to reduce the filter complexity even further, this paper considers the optimization a class of FIR filters based on the use of the generalized frequency-response masking ap...

Reduction in tlequency resolving capacity of the auditory system due to spread of masking of frequency cornponents by neighboring frequency components degrades speech perception in cases of sensorineural hearing impairment. We have carried out experimental evaluation of splitting speech into two signals lby using a bank of critical band filters, in order to reduce the effect of spectral masking...

Humans and animals are able to detect signals in noisy environments. Detection improves when the noise and the signal have different interaural phase relationships. The resulting improvement in detection threshold is called the binaural masking level difference. We investigated neural mechanisms underlying the release from masking in the inferior colliculus of barn owls in low-frequency and hig...

Human contrast sensitivities to gratings were measured within windows of 3, 9.1 and 61.5 deg at spatial differences down to the nominal frequency of 0 c/deg (i.e., a uniform field), and the resulting curves were related to the Fourier spectra of the corresponding windows and of spatial inhomogeneities in the visual pathway. The data show that sensitivity approaches an asymptote about 1.5 log un...

-This paper introduces two-channel FIR filter bank based analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for software-defined radio (SDR) applications. The synthesis filter bank is synthesized using frequency-response masking (FRM) approach. In FRM, the structure is composed of a model filter, its complementary filter, and two masking filters. The FRM was introduced as the means of generating narrow transiti...

Children's hearing deteriorates markedly in the presence of unpredictable noise. To explore why, 187 school-age children (4-11 years) and 15 adults performed a tone-in-noise detection task, in which the masking noise varied randomly between every presentation. Selective attention was evaluated by measuring the degree to which listeners were influenced by (i.e., gave weight to) each spectral reg...

Three experiments measured the effects of age on informational masking of speech by competing speech. The experiments were designed to minimize the energetic contributions of the competing speech so that informational masking could be measured with no large corrections for energetic masking. Experiment 1 used a "speech-in-speech-in-noise" design, in which the competing speech was presented in n...

The aim of this study was to investigate the possible mechanisms underlying an effect reported earlier [Wojtczak, M., and Oxenham, A. J. (2009). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 270-281] in normal-hearing listeners, whereby recovery from forward masking can be slower for off-frequency tonal maskers than for on-frequency tonal maskers that produce the same amount of masking at a 0-ms masker-signal delay...

Consistent confusions — word misperceptions reported in an open set task with a high agreement across listeners — can be especially valuable in understanding the detailed processes underlying speech perception. The current study investigates the origin of a set of consistent confusions collected in a variety of masking conditions, by applying signal-level modifications to the stimuli eliciting ...

The frequency-response masking approach for highspeed recursive infinite-impulse response (IIR) digital filters is introduced. In this approach, the overall filter consists of a periodic model filter, its power-complementary periodic filter, and two masking filters. The model filters are composed of two all-pass filters in parallel, whereas the masking filters are linear-phase finite-impulse re...