Binaural Masking Effects in Bone-Conducted Noise

When pure tones are masked by bone-conducted noise presented at the midline of the forehead, it is possible that binaural unmasking may occur due to the interaural phase relations of the noise. To study this possibility, the amount of masking produced in bone-conducted noise, in correlated air-conducted noise, and in monaural noise was determined using narrow bands of noise centered at 240, 500, 910, and 1900 Hz as markers and a block up-down two-interval forced choice procedure. The subjects were four women under 30 years of age with 10 dB HTL or better (ANSI, 1969) for the frequencies tested. The amount of unmasking (the masking-level difference) was determined by subtracting the masking levels obtained under each noise condition at each frequency from those obtained in the comparable monaural noise-monaural signal condition. Levels of binaural unmasking obtained in correlated air-conducted noise agreed with those in previously reported experiments. Comparable binaural unmasking effects were demonstrated for midline presentation of bone-conducted noise. Some clinical implications of the findings are discussed.