The role of level, spectral, and temporal cues in children's detection of masked signals

Preschool-aged children and adults were asked to detect masked signals in four conditions that evaluated the role of level, spectral, and temporal cues on performance. Psychometric functions fitted to percent correct data at several signal-to-noise ratios showed higher thresholds and shallower slopes for the children in all conditions. Performance was similar in fixed and roving level conditions for both age groups suggesting use of level-invariant cues. When the signal was moved to the spectral edge of the masker the performance of the adults improved but that of the children did not. This suggested that children did not benefit from the additional cues provided by the off-center signal. Children's performance worsened when the signal was a narrow-band noise rather than a pure tone but the adults' did not, suggesting children's reliance on temporal changes in the masker with the introduction of the signal. Analyses of the stimuli suggested that the children's thresholds corresponded to signal-to-noise ratios at which multiple cues were present at magnitudes that were great enough to be discriminable. (C) 1998 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(98)04711-0].