JSLHR
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Vol.50 564-575 June 2007. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2007/039)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow My Folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, T.
Right arrow Articles by Formby, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, T.
Right arrow Articles by Formby, C.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Effects of Cueing in Auditory Temporal Masking

Ting Zhang
School of Medicine and Graduate School,University of Maryland, Baltimore, and University of Maryland, College Park

Craig Formby
School of Medicine and Graduate School,University of Maryland, Baltimore

Contact author: Craig Formby, who is now with the Department of Communicative Disorders, P.O. Box 870242, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0242. E-mail: cformby{at}as.ua.edu.

Purpose: In a landmark study, B. A. Wright et al. (1997) reported an apparent backward-masking deficit in language-learning-impaired children. Subsequently, the controversial interpretation of those results has been influential in guiding treatments for childhood language problems. This study revisited the temporal-masking paradigm reported by B. A. Wright et al. to evaluate adult listener signal/masker uncertainty effects for some of their key stimulus conditions. New signal conditions presented off frequency from the masker also were evaluated to assess conditions of reduced signal/masker confusion.

Method: Masked detection was measured for 20-ms sinusoids (480, 1000, or 1680 Hz) presented at temporal positions before, during, or after a gated narrowband (bandwidth = 600–1400 Hz) masker. Listener uncertainty was investigated by cueing various stimulus temporal properties with a 6000-Hz sinusoid presented contralateral to the test ear.

Results: The primary cueing effect was measured in the backward-masking condition for the cue gated simultaneously with the on-frequency 1000-Hz signal. The resulting cued masked-detection threshold was reduced to quiet threshold. No significant cueing effects were obtained for other signal temporal positions in the masker or for any off-frequency signal conditions.

Conclusions: These results for normal adult listeners indicate that on-frequency backward masking can be eliminated by cueing the signal, and thus, these findings raise the possibility that the deficit reported by B. A. Wright et al. for language-learning-impaired children may reflect inordinate signal/masker confusion, rather than a temporal-processing deficit per se.

KEY WORDS: cueing effect, temporal-processing deficit, auditory temporal masking


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?




HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
All ASHA Journals AJA AJSLP JSLHR LSHSS
Copyright © 2007 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.