Please read Drs. Ihlefeld and Zhang’s article in Frontiers In Neuroscience titled, “Hemodynamic Responses Link Individual Differences in Informational Masking to the Vicinity of Superior Temporal Gyrus?“
Suppressing unwanted background sound is crucial for aural communication. A particularly disruptive type of background sound, informational masking (IM), often interferes in social settings. However, IM mechanisms are incompletely understood. At present, IM is identified operationally: when a target should be audible, based on suprathreshold target/masker energy ratios, yet cannot be heard because target-like background sound interferes. We here confirm that speech identification thresholds differ dramatically between low- vs. high-IM background sound. However, speech detection thresholds are comparable across the two conditions. To read the full article.
Hemodynamic Responses Link Individual Differences in Informational Masking to the Vicinity of Superior Temporal Gyrus. Zhang M, Alamatsaz N, Ihlefeld A. Front Neurosci. 2021 Jul 22;15:675326. PMID: 34366772 PMCID: PMC8339305 DOI: 3389/fnins.2021.675326 eCollection 2021.