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Perception of dissonance by people with normal hearing and sensorineural hearing loss

  • Jennifer B. Tufts
  • , Michelle R. Molis
  • , Marjorie R. Leek

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the perceived sensory dissonance of. pairs of pure tones (PT dyads) or pairs of harmonic complex tones (HC dyads) is altered due to sensorineural hearing loss. Four normal-hearing (NH) and four hearing-impaired (HI) listeners judged the sensory dissonance of PT dyads geometrically centered at 500 and 2000 Hz, and of HC dyads with fundamental frequencies geometrically centered at 500 Hz. The frequency separation of the members of the dyads varied from O Hz to just over an octave. In addition, frequency selectivity was assessed at 500 and 2000 Hz for each listener. Maximum dissonance was perceived at frequency separations smaller than the auditory filter bandwidth for both groups of listners, but maximum dissonance for HI listeners occurred at a greater proportion of their bandwidths at 500 Hz than at 2000 Hz. Further, their auditory-filter bandwidths at 500 Hz were significantly wider than those of the NH listeners. For both the PT and HC dyads, curves displaying dissonance as a function of frequency separation were more compressed for the HI listeners, possibly reflecting less contrast between their perceptions of consonance and dissonance compared with the NH listeners.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)955-967
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume118
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2005
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from NIH-NIDCD (No. DC 00626). It was approved by the Clinical Investigation Committee and the Human Use Committee, Department of Clinical Investigation, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, under Work Unit No. 03-25012. All subjects participating in this research provided written informed consent prior to beginning the study. The authors would like to thank Robert Lutfi and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this article, as well as the staff of the Research Section of the Army Audiology and Speech Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for their helpful suggestions and discussions. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

FundersFunder number
NIH/NIDCD
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC012546 Xue Zhong Liu National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC012115 Xue Zhong Liu National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC014427 Ulrich Müller Peter G Barr-Gillespie National Institute on Deafnessand Other Communication Disorders R01DC005965 Ulrich Müller National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication DisordersR01DC000626

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
    • Acoustics and Ultrasonics

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