The Binaural Masking-Level Difference of Mandarin Tone Detection and the Binaural Intelligibility-Level Difference of Mandarin Tone Recognition in the Presence of Speech-Spectrum Noise

Binaural hearing involves using information relating to the differences between the signals that arrive at the two ears, and it can make it easier to detect and recognize signals in a noisy environment. This phenomenon of binaural hearing is quantified in laboratory studies as the binaural masking-level difference (BMLD). Mandarin is one of the most commonly used languages, but there are no publication values of BMLD or BILD based on Mandarin tones. Therefore, this study investigated the BMLD and BILD of Mandarin tones. The BMLDs of Mandarin tone detection were measured based on the detection threshold differences for the four tones of the voiced vowels /i/ (i.e., /i1/, /i2/, /i3/, and /i4/) and /u/ (i.e., /u1/, /u2/, /u3/, and /u4/) in the presence of speech-spectrum noise when presented interaurally in phase (S(0)N(0)) and interaurally in antiphase (S(π)N(0)). The BILDs of Mandarin tone recognition in speech-spectrum noise were determined as the differences in the target-to-masker ratio (TMR) required for 50% correct tone recognitions between the S(0)N(0) and S(π)N(0) conditions. The detection thresholds for the four tones of /i/ and /u/ differed significantly (p<0.001) between the S(0)N(0) and S(π)N(0) conditions. The average detection thresholds of Mandarin tones were all lower in the S(π)N(0) condition than in the S(0)N(0) condition, and the BMLDs ranged from 7.3 to 11.5 dB. The TMR for 50% correct Mandarin tone recognitions differed significantly (p<0.001) between the S(0)N(0) and S(π)N(0) conditions, at –13.4 and –18.0 dB, respectively, with a mean BILD of 4.6 dB. The study showed that the thresholds of Mandarin tone detection and recognition in the presence of speech-spectrum noise are improved when phase inversion is applied to the target speech. The average BILDs of Mandarin tones are smaller than the average BMLDs of Mandarin tones.