Loudness functions in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

Abstract

This paper examined whether an excitation-pattern model of loudness could adequately describe the growth of loudness for complex stimuli presented to normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners in quiet and in noise. The loudness-growth functions were obtained for three synthesized steady-state vowels (/a,i,u/), each with two talkers (male: F0=120 Hz; female: F0=200 Hz), and for several pure tones (125–4000 Hz). All stimuli were presented, at random, from 2 to 90 dB SPL (in 4-dB steps) in quiet and in broadband noise. Magnitude estimation were used to measure the loudness of each stimulus. These data are used to evaluate the predictions of an excitation-pattern model [modified power-law model, L. Humes and W. Jesteadt, 1285–1294 (1989)]. [Work supported by NIA.]