SEX-DIFFERENCES IN SIMULTANEOUS MASKING WITH RANDOM-FREQUENCY MASKERS

Previously published data for 49 normal-hearing, young adult listeners in a simultaneous-masking task with high stimulus uncertainty were re examined with regard to possible differences in performance for male v ersus female listeners. The task was the detection of a 1000-Hz, sinus oidal signal in the presence of multitonal simultaneous maskers compri sed of sinusoids whose frequencies were drawn at random from a wide ra nge with each stimulus presentation. The analysis focused on the ten-c omponent masking condition, which included all listeners and showed la rge individual differences in performance. The average quiet threshold for the signal was near 6 dB SPL for both the 27 males and 22 females , but average masked threshold was 7-8 dB higher for females. More fem ales than males were represented in the highest quartile or upper half of the performance range (''high threshold''), with more males than f emales in the lowest quartile or half(''low threshold''). Particularly for tasks exhibiting large individual differences, more attention sho uld be paid to the possibility of sex differences in performance. (C) 1996 Acoustical Society of America.