Effect of sinusoidally amplitude modulated broadband noise stimuli on stream segregation in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss

Background and Aim: Auditory stream segregation is a phenomenon that splits sounds into different streams. The temporal cues that contribute for stream segregation have been previously studied in normal hearing people. In people with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), the cues for temporal envelope coding is not usually affected, while the temporal fine structure cues are affected. These two temporal cues depend on the amplitude modulation frequency. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of sinusoidal amplitude modulated (SAM) broadband noises on stream segregation in individuals with SNHL. Methods: Thirty normal hearing subjects and 30 subjects with mild to moderate bilateral SNHL participated in the study. Two experiments were performed; in the first experiment, the AB sequence of broadband SAM stimuli was presented, while in the second experiment, only B sequence was presented. A low (16 Hz) and a high (256 kHz) standard modulation frequency were used in these experiments. The subjects were asked to find the irregularities in the rhythmic sequence. Results: Both the study groups could identify the irregularities similarly in both the experiments. The minimum cumulative delay was slightly higher in the SNHL group. Conclusion: It is suggested that the temporal cues provided by the broadband SAM noises for low and high standard modulation frequencies were not used for stream segregation by either normal hearing subjects or those with SNHL.