Time-efficient measures of auditory frequency selectivity

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare two recently proposed methods for fast measurements of psychophysical tuning curves (fast-PTCs) in terms of resulting tuning curve features and training effects. Design: Fast-PTCs with swept-noise (SN) and gated-noise (GN) maskers were measured at signal frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz. The effect of amplitude modulating the signal in the GN condition was evaluated. Two PTC runs were obtained for each condition to assess training effects. Study sample: Eight normally-hearing young adults participated in the study. Results: The SN and GN methods resulted in similar estimates of frequency selectivity when training effects were considered. Amplitude modulating the tone in the GN method reduced the effect of training. On average, SN-PTCs were most repeatable compared to the two other methods and they were not affected by training. Estimation of the shift in the PTC tip frequency was not affected by the measurement method or training effects. Fast-PTC methods resulted in similar estimates of tuning as compared to published notched-noise data. Conclusions: The SN method and the GN procedure with amplitude modulated signals allowed for time-efficient estimation of frequency selectivity that was unaffected by training.