Masking, temporal integration, and sensorineural hearing loss.

This study was undertaken basically to examine the effect of white noise masking on temporal integration and how the frequency dependence of temporal integration is related to hearing loss. The threshold differences between 500-msec and 20-msec tones at .5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz were found for 147 ears of 86 subjects with normal hearing and with various amounts of cochlear hearing loss. Thresholds were measured in three levels of background white noise--30, 60, and 90 dB SPL. The principal finding was that temporal integration is frequency dependent and this dependence is not an epiphenomenon of the decrease in temporal integration due to cochlear hearing loss.