TY - JOUR T1 - The effect of presentation level on spectrotemporal modulation detection JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/450957 SP - 450957 AU - Sara Magits AU - Arturo Moncada-Torres AU - Lieselot Van Deun AU - Jan Wouters AU - Astrid van Wieringen AU - Tom Francart Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/24/450957.abstract N2 - The understanding of speech in noise relies (at least partially) on spectrotemporal modulation sensitivity. This sensitivity can be measured by spectral ripple tests, which can be administered at different presentation levels. However, it is not known how presentation level affects spectrotemporal modulation thresholds. In this work, we present behavioral data for normal-hearing adults which show that at higher ripple densities (2 and 4 ripples/oct), increasing presentation level led to worse discrimination thresholds. Results of a computational model suggested that the higher thresholds could be explained by a worsening of the spectrotemporal representation in the auditory nerve due to broadening of cochlear filters and neural activity saturation. Our results demonstrate the importance of taking presentation level into account when administering spectrotemporal modulation detection tests. ER -