The effect of sensorineural hearing loss on suprathreshold perception of tonal components in noise.

The present study investigates how sensorineural hearing loss affects the perception of suprathreshold tonal components in noise. Masked threshold, tonality, and loudness of the tonal content are measured for one, two, or four simultaneously presented sinusoids. The levels of the suprathreshold tonal components were chosen relative to the individual masked thresholds. Masked thresholds were significantly higher for the hearing-impaired listeners than for normal-hearing listeners. In general, tonality was the same for hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners at the same level above threshold. The same was found for the loudness of the tonal content.