The effect of varying the slope of the amplitude-frequency response on the masked speech-reception threshold of sentences.

Within the framework of a study on the merits of a frequency-dependent automatic gain control in hearing aids, the effect of varying the slope of the amplitude-frequency response on the speech-reception threshold (SRT) for sentences in noise was studied for normal-hearing listeners. Speech and noise were both subjected to the same amplitude-frequency response. In the first experiment, the effect of a constant slope was investigated (20 listeners). Over a range of about -7 to +10 dB/oct, the SRT in noise remained constant. In the second experiment, a single change in the slope of the amplitude-frequency response was introduced halfway through the sentence. The effect of varying the transition time over a range down to 0.125 s appeared to be very small. In the third experiment, the slope varied continuously with range and variation frequency (0.25-2 Hz) as the parameters. The masked SRT increased gradually with variation frequency. The results indicate that the masked SRT for sentences is remarkably resistant to dynamic variations in the slope of the amplitude-frequency response.