The effect of competing melodies on melody recognition

by hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners

J. A. P.M. de Laata) and R. Plompb)
Facultyof Medicine,Free University,
,4msterdam,TheNetherlands

(Received19November1984;accepted
for publication21 June1985)
For a groupof 30 heating-impairedsubjects
anda matchedgroupof 15normal-heatingsubjects
{agerange13-17}thefollowingdatawerecollected: thetoneaudiogram, theauditorybandwidth
at 1000Hz, and the recognitionthresholdof a shortmelodypresentedsimultaneously with two
othermelodies,lowerandhigherin frequency,respectively. The thresholdwasdefinedasthe
frequencydistancerequiredto recognizethe testmelody.It wasfoundthat, whereasthe mean
recognitionthresholdfor thenormal-hearing subjectswasfivesemitones,it was,on the average,
27 semitonesfor theheating-impairedsubjects.Althoughtheinterindividualspreadfor thelatter
groupwaslarge,it didnotcorrelatewiththesubjects' auditorybandwidth,norwiththeirmusical
experienceor education.
PACS numbers:43.66.D½,43.66.Mk, 43.75.Cd [DW]

INTRODUCTION In addition to melodyrecognition,the auditory band-

In previousresearchin our group (e.g., Festen and
Plomp, 1983;Dreschlerand Plomp, 1985),data on different
auditory functionswere correlatedwith the speech-recep-
tion thresholdin quietandin noise,bothfor normal-hearing
and hearing-impairedlisteners.It wasfoundthat the effect
of heating impairment on speechperceptioncan be ex-
plainedpartly as a resultof a deteriorationin the ear'sfre-
quency-resolving power. Since frequencyresolutionalso
plays an important role in music perception,it appeared
worthwhileto investigatethe degreeto whichrecognitionin
polyphonicmusicis affectedby hearingimpairment.Hear-
ing-impairedpeopleoftencomplainof difficultyin hearing
when there are competingspeechmessages;the present
study may be consideredas the analogyof this condition
with simultaneous tonesequences rather than voices.
Severalstudiesare knownaboutthe auditorycapacityof
normal-hearingsubjectsto segregatetwo or more fluctuat-
ingtonesequences. Experimentsby Bregman(1972}indicat-
ed that mostsubjectswereableto detectchangesin the tem-
poral patternof two melodiesif the rate wasbelow 5 tones
per second.Van Noorden(1975}comparedtemporalcoher-
ence,fission,and fusionin the perceptionof tonesequences.
The temporalcoherence boundarydepends heavilyuponthe
tone rate; the fissionboundary,however,is relatively inde-
pendentof the tone rate.
Studiesby Deutsch(reviewedin Deutsch,1982}report-
edon toneandmelodyrecognition:Only rare individualsare
able to reproduceor recognizea singletone,in spiteof our
daily exposureto a multitudeof suchtones.In contrast,most
of us easilylearn to recognizeand recalltonal combinations
suchas melodies.No experimentson the effectof hearing
impairmenton melodyrecognitionareknownto the present
authors.
alPresent
address:
ENT Department,UniversityHospital,Leiden,The
Netherlands.
blAlsoat Institutefor Perception,
Soesterberg,
TheNetherlands.
width of the subjectswasmeasuredin our experiments.We
can expectthat subjectswith wide critical bands,due to
hearingimpairment,will have difficultiesin discriminating
simultaneoustonesin a musical context, which will be detri-
mentalto the perceptionof melodiesin polyphoniemusic.
Many authorshave examinedthe relationsbetweenfre-
quencyselectivity,frequencydiscrimination,hearingloss,
and speechintelligibilityin noise.Someimportantconclu-
sionscan be drawn from the studiesby Florentine et al.
(1980), Zurek and Formby (1981), Hall and Fernandes
(1983},Tyler et al. (1982, 1983},Festenand Plomp (1983},
and Dreschlerand Plomp {1985}:Frequencyselectivityis
reducedin the frequencyrangeof a eoehlearhearingloss;
this reductionis almostindependentof soundlevel.
In our experiments,melodyrecognitionwasstudiedby
meansof sequences of threesimultaneous
tones,in whichthe
frequencydistancebetweenthesetonesrequiredto perceive
correctlythe melody of the middle toneswas the criterion.
I. EXPERIMENTS
A. Method
First, the pure-tonehearinglevel was measuredat 11
frequencies (125,250, 500, 630, 800, 1000,1250,1600,2000,
4000, and 8000 Hz). We usedan adaptedBekesyprocedure,
whichtakesabout10min per ear.
Subsequently, themelody-recognition limit wasinvesti-
gated. The subjecthad five push buttonsat his disposal.
Threeof thepushbuttonsactivated(1)the testmelodyalone,
(2)the testmelodypresented simultaneously with two mask-
ingmelodies,and (3)an alternativemelody,againpresented
simultaneouslywith two maskingmelodies(seeFig. 1).
Thesemaskingmelodieswere at equal distances(in semi-
tones)belowand abovethe test melody.The two response
buttonscorrespondedto the two maskingsituations.The
melodiesconsistedof four pure tones.The subjectwas al-
lowedto hear eachof the threesignalstwice,after whichhe
had to decidewhich of the two complexsignalscontained

1574 J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 78 (5), November 1985 0001-4966/85/111574-04500.80 ¸ 1985 AcousticalSocietyof America 1574

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 TEST SEQUENCE

]20dB
10•0 Hz FIG. 2. Spectrum and tem-
SPECTRUM
poral structurein the band-
width experiment.
SEQUENCE A SEQUENCE B

0.2 0.5 0.7 1.0 1.3 1.5s

I !,_z , . TEMPORAL STRUCTURE

I •--" M- , ' '" •- •--

Finally, the auditory bandwidth of the subjectswas

,• , ,, I,•J •J , I measuredwith a procedureadoptedfrom Houtgast(1974).
A 1000-Hz probe tone was presentedsimultaneouslywith
FIG. 1. Exampleof the procedureusedin the melody-recognition
experi- comb-filteredwhite noiseat a spectrallevel of 60 dB/Hz
ment. (intensityin 1-Hz intervals).The detectionthresholdwas
measuredboth at the peak and in the valley of the noise
signal,
withrippledensities
of•, 1,and2 ripplesper1000Hz.
the testmelody.The testmelodywasalwaysin the frequency
From Houtgast{1974)we know that only thesethree ripple
regionaround500 Hz. The alternativemelodywasequalto densities are needed to estimate the bandwidth of the audi-
the testmelody,exceptthat the secondand third noteswere
tory filter with someaccuracy.The peak-to-valleyratio was
in reversedorder(thisrestrictionwasnot knownto the sub-
20 dB (see Fig. 2). We used an adaptive two-alternative
ject}. In this way, with the critical notesin the test melody
forced-choiceprocedurewhich takesabout30 min per ear.
surroundedboth in time and frequencyby other notes,we
In the melody-recognition test the melodiesof pure
tried as much as possibleto make the subjectuse melody
toneswere around500 Hz, i.e., the regionaroundA4 (440
differenceasa criterion.The two maskingmelodieswereat a
Hz). The auditorybandwidthwasmeasuredwith a 1000-Hz
variablefrequencydistanceaboveand belowthe testmelo-
probe tone, becausethis test was part of a battery of tests
dy. The distanceof the toneswithin any melody was never
with tonesin the regionaround 1000Hz. A preliminaryex-
greaterthan three semitones, with no repeatedtonesin the
perimentwith only 10 of the 30 heating-impairedsubjects
same melody. All 24 possiblevariationsin ordering four indicated that the correlation coefficient between the audi-
tones with no repeatedtones were presentedat random.
tory bandwidthsat 500 and at 1000 Hz was 0.89 (seealso
From experimentsby van Noorden(1975}we may conclude
Dreschlerand Plomp, 1985).
that the tonesequences usedwerealwayswithin the tempo-
All experimentswere carried out twice on different
ral coherenceboundary.
days.The experiments werepreceded by a standardtraining
Tone duration was 350 ms, with silent intervals between
scheme,afterwhichall subjectshadnoproblemsin perform-
the tonesof 50 ms,resultingin a rate of 2.5 tonesper second.
ing the test. For the melody-recognitiontest both normal-
Bregman {1972) found that a melody with a small pitch
hearingand hearing-impairedlistenerswere able to recog-
range, separatedfrom the range of the interleavedback-
nize the testmelodyin a conditionof no competingmelody,
ground,is easilyperceivedat ratesfrom 1.4to 20.0 tonesper
after beingtrained.
second.
The toneswere gatedwith rise and fall timesof 15 ms,
and their frequencieswere chosenaccordingto the equal-
temperedscale.Octave relationsbetweentonesof the test
melody,the alternativemelody,and the maskingmelodies •o

were avoided.Octavesare more likely to fusesuchthat the 2c

individualcomponents arelessaudibleassingletones(e.g.,
• 30
BregmanandDoehring,1984}.Sowhena notein a masking _J

melodyhasan octaverelationwith a notein the testmelody, > '40 •o%

thismay disturbits recognition.The melodieswerepresent- _1 5 0,1
25%
ed at a constant, most comfortable sound level. z

rr 6O
The minimum frequency distance between the test 5o•"--=
melodyandthe maskingmelodiesrequiredto recognizecor- 7O

rectly the middle melodywas measuredwith an adaptive 80

two-alternativeforced-choice procedure.The startingvalue

was a distance of 45 semitonesbetween test melody and 250 500 :•000 20100 40100 8000
maskingmelodies.After threesuccessive correctresponses
FREQUENCY (HZ)
the distancewas decreasedwith a stepsizeof two semitones
and after eachwrongresponse the distancewasequallyin- FIG. 3. Distributionof the audiogramsof 30 hearing-impairedlisteners.
creased.In this way a thresholddistancewas reachedcorre- The numbersindicatethepercentage of subjects
whosehearinglevelswere
spondingto a probabilityof a correctresponseof 79%. better than the indicated value.

1575 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 78, No. 5, November 1985 J.A.P.M. de Laat and R. Plomp:Melody recognition 1575

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 30 [ [ : I [ 10 , , , , , , , ,

- HEARING-IMPAIRED SUBJECT,•

c• 20
o

30 4 8 2 3
z
22 2?6
29 2•325 6
18 1 17 7 5
2O
o
/

z
o

-
-

_
--

-•0•0 3i0 4i0 5i0 6i0 7i0 80

NORMAL-HEARING SUBJECTS
6 -
MEAN HEARING LOSS (DB)

8 - -
FIG. 4. Meanslopeandmeanaudiometric
lossforthe30hearing-impaired
subjects.
1O0 5i i 15
10 i 20
i 25
i 30
i 35
i 40
i 45
B. Apparatus MEL.REC.THR. IN SEMITONES

Theexperiments
werecontrolled
bycomputer.
Thesub- FIG. 6. Recognition
thresholdof maskedmelodies
in histogram
form.
jectsweresituatedin an anechoicchamberandlistenedmon-
aurallyoverheadphones. Thetonegenerators,filters,gates,
amplifiers,andattenuatorswereof standardtypesor made gram.As canbe seen,the groupof 30 subjects had a great
by our technical staff. variability,bothin the meanslopeand in the meanloss.In
the sameway asDreschlerandPlomp(1980),we haveused
C. Subjects these measures for correlation with the other data.
In Figs.5 and 6 the resultsof the melody-recognition
As heating-impaired subjects,30 pupilswith sensoft-
testare plotted.Figure5 represents the frequency-distance
neuralheatinglosses at a highschoolfor the heatingim- thresholdof the testmelodyfor the heating-impaired sub-
pairedwereused.Theiragesvariedfrom 13to 17years.As a jectsboth in the testand in the retest.The test-retestreliabil-
reference groupwe used15 normal-hearing pupilsat the
ity is verygood:The reliabilitycoefficient
for the heating-
sameeducationallevelasthe heating-impaired subjects.In
impairedsubjects is 0.91.Therewasno significant learning
the melody-recognition testandin the auditory-bandwidth effect.
test only one ear of the subjectwas used:the ear with the
Histograms of thesethresholds arepresented in Fig. 6.
smallermeanaudiometricloss.All subjects werepaid for
their services.
The meanthresholdfor thenormal-hearing subjects is 5 se-
mitones(standarddeviation3 semitones)and the mean
II. RESULTS thresholdfor the hearing-impaired subjectsis 27 semitones
(standarddeviation 10 semitones).Apparently there is a
The distributionof the hearingthresholdsof the hear- largedifferencebetweenthetwo groups.
ing-impairedsubjectsis shownin Fig. 3. The subjectsshow In thescatterdiagramof Fig. 7 theauditory-bandwidth
an increasinghearinglosstowardsthehigherfrequencies. data for the heating-impairedsubjectsare combinedwith
Figure4 gives,for eachsubjectindividually,the mean thethresholds foundin themelody-recognition test.On the
audiometriclossasa functionofthemeanslopein theaudio- basisofthehypothesis thattheear'sfrequency selectivityisa
6O

6O
5O

z 50
o
4O
8

,,, 40- 11

3O !
z 4
16 19
23
30- 24
•o
7
2O •325
28 18
10

•0
c• 2o 29 6 26
27

..J •o

i i i 15 i i i i i
NUMBER OF SUBJECT oo lO0 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 •.000

BANDWIDTH (HZ)
FIG. 5. Recognitionthresholdof maskedmelodiesfor the 30 numbered
hearing-impaired
subjectsin testandin retest,according
to thedirectionof FIG. 7. Recognition
threshold
ofmasked melodies
asa function
oftheloga-
the arrows.
rithmof theauditorybandwidth,
for the30hearing-impaired
subjects.

1576 J.acoust.
Soc.Am.,Vol.78,No.5, November
1985 J.a.P.M. deLaatandR.Plomp:
Melody
recognition 1576

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 8 i I t
In Fig. 8, for 20 heating-impairedsubjects(with
7- 9 13 15 numbers1 to 20), the numberof instrumentsrecognizedis
6- 2O plottedas a functionof the meanrecognitionthresholdof
5- 1o maskedmelodies.Apparently,the two scoresare not relat-
ed.
4-õ :::' 7 18

4 38
We alsoaskedthe subjects
whethertheyliked listening
3- 12
to musicor playedan instrument.A relation betweenthese
2- ii
answersand the test performancescould not be found. So
t-
thereis no evidencethat a connectionwith musicimproves
i i i

O0 20 30 40 50
the resultsof the melody-recognitiontest.
We may concludethat hearing-impairedsubjectsshow
MEL.REC.THR. IN SEMITONES a considerablespreadin their ability to recognizea melody
FIG. 8. Numberof recognizedinstruments asa functionof the recognition
presentedsimultaneously with two melodieslowerand high-
thresholdof maskedmelodiesfor 20 hearing-impairedsubjects. er in frequency.This reducedability appearsnot to be corre-
lated with the auditory bandwidthof the impaired ear, nor
with the subject'smusicalexperienceor education.
constitutivefactorin melodyrecognition,we expecteda cor-
relation between the results of the two tests. The correlation ACKNOWLEDGMENT
coefficientactually found for the 30 hearing-impairedsub-
jectswas,however,only0.23 andnot significant. The corre- This study is supportedby the NetherlandsOrganiza-
lationcoefficientfoundfor the ten hearing-impairedsubjects tion for the Advancementof Pure Research(ZWO).
in thecaseof the auditorybandwidthat 500 Hz was0.34, but
alsonot significant.The resultsof the melody-recognition
testdonotcorrelate
anybetterwithotherauditoryfunctions
measured,like meanhearingloss,meanslopein the audio- Bregman,A. S. (1972)."Primary auditorystreamsegregation and the per-•
gram, and temporalresolution.It is apparentthat some ceptionof tunes,"unpublishedmanuscript,Dept. of Psychology,McGill
University, Montreal, Canada.
heating-impairedsubjectswith relatively wide auditory Bregman,A. S., and Doehring,P. (1984). "Fusion of simultaneoustone-
bandwidthsare verygoodat recognizingmelodies,and that glides:The roleof parallelness
andsimplefrequencyrelations,"Percept.
ontheotherhandsomehearing-impaired subjects
with rela- Psychophys. 36, 251-256.
tively narrow auditory bandwidthshardly recognizethe Deutsch,D. (1982)."Groupingmechanisms in music,"in ThePsychology of
melodies. Music (Academic,New York), pp. 99-134.
Dreschler,W. A., andPlomp,R. (1980)."Relationbetweenpsychophysical
dataandspeechperceptionfor hearing-impaired subjects(I)," J. Acoust.
III. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Sac. Am. 68, 1608-1615.
Dreschler,W. A., andPlomp,R. (1985)."Relationbetweenpsychophysical
The findingthat for the hearing-impaired
listenersthe dataandspeechperceptionfor hearing-impaired subjects (II)," J. Acoust.
melody-recognition thresholdaround500 Hz wasnot corre- Sac.Am. (accepted).
lated with the bandwidth.measure,even though measured Festen,J. M., andPlomp,R. (1983)."Relationsbetweenauditoryfunctions
in impairedhearing,"J. Acoust.Sac.Am. 73, 652-662.
around 1000Hz, is rather surprising.It suggests
that other
Florentine,M., Buus, S., Scharf,B., and Zwicker, E. (1980). "Frequency
factors,morecentrallylocatedthan peripheralfrequencyse- selectivityin normal-hearing
andhearing-impaired observers," J. Speech
lectivity,wereresponsible
forthefactthatthesesubjects
per- Hear. Res. 23, 646-669.
formed much worse than normal-hearinglistenersof the Hall,J.W., andFernandes,
M. A. (1983)."Temporal
integration,
frequen•.y
resolution,and off-frequencylisteningin normal-hearingand cochlear-
sameageand educationallevel. impairedlisteners,"J. Acoust.Sac.Am. 74, 1172-1177.
A possibleexplanation
mightbethat,dueto theirhear- Houtgast, T. (1974). Lateral Suppression in Hearing, Ph.D. dissertation
ingloss,thesubjectswerenotsoexperienced
at listeningto (FreeUniversity,Amsterdam,The Netherlands).
music,sothat the experimental
taskof melodyrecognition Noorden,L. P. A. S. van (1975). TemporalCoherence in the Perceptionof
was much more difficult for them than for the normal-hear- ToneSequences, Ph.D. dissertation(Universityof Technology,Eindho-
ven,The Netherlands). ,

ingsubjects.In orderto getsomeinsightintothisquestion,
werequested 20 of the30heating-impaired
subjects
to listen
to a recordingof "Peter and the Wolf" by S. Prokofiev.
Afterthat,a partof thecompositionin whichsevendifferent
instruments are prominentwasplayedagain,and the sub-
jectswereaskedto recognizetheseinstruments..
Tyler, R. S., Wood, E. J., and Fernandes,M. (1982)."Frequencyresolution
and hearingloss,"Brit. J. Audiol. 16, 45-63.
Tyler, R. S., Wood, E. J., and Fernandes,M. (1983)."Frequencyresolution
anddiscriminationof constantanddynamictonesin normalandhearing-
impairedlisteners,"J. Acoust.Sac.Am. 74, 1190-1199.
Zurek, P.M., and Formby,C. (1981)."Frequency-discrimination ability of
hearing-impairedlisteners,"J. SpeechHear. Res.46, 108-112.

1577 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 78, No. 5, November 1985 J.A.P.M. de Laat and R. Plomp: Melody recognition 1577

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