Subject: Re: AUDITORY Digest - 15 Aug 2001 to 16 Aug 2001 (#2001-159) From: "Watson, Charles S" <watson(at)INDIANA.EDU> Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 14:52:50 -0500Sheila, The error of measurement of thresholds for pure tones in a continuous masker is fairly large compared to the individual differences among the listeners, for psychophysical methods we have examined. Obviously if you continued testing forever that would likely not be true. But for normal numbers of trials, the error of measurement, estimated from test--retest reliability, is in the range of 1-2 dB, and the range of individual differences in the thresholds of listeners with clinically normal hearing is not much greater than that. As a consequence, not only is the correlation low between test and retest, but so is the correlation with other measures...such as the quiet threshold that you are asking about. This may not be the case if you obtained the masked thresholds with very low levels of the masker; I am only talking about masker levels that are high enough to yield at least 15 dB+ of masking for all listeners. We showed some of the correlation with other measures in: Johnson, D. M., Watson, C. S. and Jensen, J.K. (1987) Individual differences in auditory capabilities. I. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 81, 427-38. Hope this is of some use... Chuck Watson PS This answer is entirely addressed to the question of pure tones presented in a continuous masker. If you are interested in temporal masking phenomena, simply ignore it. That is a very different bag of worms. csw -----Original Message----- From: Automatic digest processor [mailto:LISTSERV(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 11:00 PM To: Recipients of AUDITORY digests Subject: AUDITORY Digest - 15 Aug 2001 to 16 Aug 2001 (#2001-159) There are 4 messages totalling 130 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. threshold/masking data (2) 2. Annoyance of cell phone use in public spaces (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:55:04 +0100 From: Sheila M Williams <sheila.williams(at)UCL.AC.UK> Subject: threshold/masking data Hi, does anybody out there have any pure-tone threshold and simultaneous masking data for normal hearing listeners aged from 13 to 40 or thereabouts. We're interested in how closely these two scores correlate if at all. Sheila Sheila Williams Tel 020 7679 5399 Psychology Department Fax 020 7436 4276 University College London 26 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:25:11 +0100 From: "OMard, Lowel P" <lowel(at)ESSEX.AC.UK> Subject: Re: Annoyance of cell phone use in public spaces Hi People, Hannes Muesch wrote: > Dear List > > I am afraid I am not the only one who is at times annoyed by having to > overhear mobile phone users ranting in public spaces. Strangely > enough, it > seems to me that overhearing a face-to-face conversation happens much > less > frequently and when it does it seems much less annoying. I wonder whether > there is a consensus that .... There is another reason why overhearing people using mobile phones are more annoying than hearing face to face conversations, that nobody seems to have mentioned. When overhearing a mobile phone conversation we can only hear one side, whereas eavesdropping on a face to face conversation generally gives us access to both. Being naturally nosey creatures it is of course frustrating to only hear half the conversation. ...Lowel. -- _______________________________________________________________ Dr. Lowel P. M. O'Mard PhD. CNBH, Hearing Research Laboratory, Dept. of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/hearinglab ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:25:16 +0100 From: Roy Patterson <roy.patterson(at)MRC-CBU.CAM.AC.UK> Subject: Re: threshold/masking data At 16:55 16/08/2001 +0100, you wrote: >Hi, > >does anybody out there have any pure-tone threshold and simultaneous >masking data for normal hearing listeners aged from 13 to 40 or >thereabouts. We're interested in how closely these two scores correlate if >at all. We showed positive correlations at 0.5 and 2.0 kHz but not at 4.0 kHz. See Patterson, R.D., Nimmo-Smith, I., Weber, D.L., and Milroy, R. (1982). The deterioration of hearing with age: Frequency selectivity, the critical ratio, the audiogram, and speech threshold. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 72, 1788-1803. There is a table of correlations on page 1794. Cheers Roy P __________________________________________________ Roy D. Patterson Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing Physiology Department, University of Cambridge Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EG phone 44 (1223) 333819 office phone 44 (1223) 333837 lab fax 44 (1223) 333840 department email rdp1(at)cam.ac.uk or email roy.patterson(at)mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/roy.patterson/ http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/roy.patterson/aim http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/roy.patterson/cnbh ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:53:01 -0500 From: Tom Brennan <g_brennantg(at)TITAN.SFASU.EDU> Subject: Re: Annoyance of cell phone use in public spaces Hi Lowel. While what you say is true, if it was a major player people should be just as annoyed hearing someone using a regular telephone and that doesn't seem to be the case. Tom Tom Brennan, CCC-A/SLP, RHD web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/speechscience.html web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/fluency.html ------------------------------ End of AUDITORY Digest - 15 Aug 2001 to 16 Aug 2001 (#2001-159) ***************************************************************