The role of early and late reflections on spatial release from masking: Effects of age and hearing loss

Abstract

Early reflections have been linked to improved speech intelligibility, while later-arriving reverberant sound has been shown to limit speech understanding. Here, these effects were examined by artificially removing either early reflections or late reflections. Removing late reflections improved performance more for colocated than for spatially separated maskers. Results of a multiple regression analysis suggest that pure-tone average (PTA) is a significant predictor of spatial release from masking (SRM) in all acoustic conditions. Controlling for the effects of PTA, age is a significant predictor of SRM only when early reflections are absent.