A Tangibly Reinforced Speech Reception Threshold Procedure for Use with Small Children

1976 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-338
Author(s):  
Frederick N. Martin ◽  
Sherry Coombes
Keyword(s):  
Operant Conditioning ◽  
Sound Field ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
New Method ◽  
Small Children ◽  
Field System ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Threshold Procedure ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Hearing Children

Forty normal-hearing children between 17 and 56 months were tested using a new method for determining speech reception thresholds. The words employed were names for parts of a device that was in the form of a colorful clown. The device automatically rewarded the child with a small piece of candy each time he pressed the part of the clown that had been announced through the sound field system of a speech audiometer. Results showed that operant conditioning speech audiometry using tangible reinforcers is feasible for small children. Both boys and girls can be tested accurately by this method down to age two and one-half years.

scholarly journals Auditory Attention and Spatial Unmasking in Children With Cochlear Implants

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 233121652094698
Author(s):  
Sara M. Misurelli ◽  
Matthew J. Goupell ◽  
Emily A. Burg ◽  
Rachael Jocewicz ◽  
Alan Kan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Free Field ◽  
Auditory Attention ◽  
Noisy Environments ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Bilateral Cochlear Implants ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Spatial Unmasking ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Hearing Children

The ability to attend to target speech in background noise is an important skill, particularly for children who spend many hours in noisy environments. Intelligibility improves as a result of spatial or binaural unmasking in the free-field for normal-hearing children; however, children who use bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs) demonstrate little benefit in similar situations. It was hypothesized that poor auditory attention abilities might explain the lack of unmasking observed in children with BiCIs. Target and interferer speech stimuli were presented to either or both ears of BiCI participants via their clinical processors. Speech reception thresholds remained low when the target and interferer were in opposite ears, but they did not show binaural unmasking when the interferer was presented to both ears and the target only to one ear. These results demonstrate that, in the most extreme cases of stimulus separation, children with BiCIs can ignore an interferer and attend to target speech, but there is weak or absent binaural unmasking. It appears that children with BiCIs mostly experience poor encoding of binaural cues rather than deficits in ability to selectively attend to target speech.

scholarly journals Spatial Speech-in-Noise Performance in Bimodal and Single-Sided Deaf Cochlear Implant Users

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651985831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Williges ◽  
Thomas Wesarg ◽  
Lorenz Jung ◽  
Leontien I. Geven ◽  
Andreas Radeloff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Noise Performance ◽  
Speech In Noise ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Patient Groups ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Binaural Listening

This study compared spatial speech-in-noise performance in two cochlear implant (CI) patient groups: bimodal listeners, who use a hearing aid contralaterally to support their impaired acoustic hearing, and listeners with contralateral normal hearing, i.e., who were single-sided deaf before implantation. Using a laboratory setting that controls for head movements and that simulates spatial acoustic scenes, speech reception thresholds were measured for frontal speech-in-stationary noise from the front, the left, or the right side. Spatial release from masking (SRM) was then extracted from speech reception thresholds for monaural and binaural listening. SRM was found to be significantly lower in bimodal CI than in CI single-sided deaf listeners. Within each listener group, the SRM extracted from monaural listening did not differ from the SRM extracted from binaural listening. In contrast, a normal-hearing control group showed a significant improvement in SRM when using two ears in comparison to one. Neither CI group showed a binaural summation effect; that is, their performance was not improved by using two devices instead of the best monaural device in each spatial scenario. The results confirm a “listening with the better ear” strategy in the two CI patient groups, where patients benefited from using two ears/devices instead of one by selectively attending to the better one. Which one is the better ear, however, depends on the spatial scenario and on the individual configuration of hearing loss.

A Comparison of the Auditec of St. Louis Cassette Recordings of NU-6 and CID W-22 on a Normal-Hearing Population

1977 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall C. Beattie ◽  
Brad J. Edgerton ◽  
Dion V. Svihovec
Keyword(s):  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Discrimination Score ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Speech Discrimination Tests ◽  
Speech Discrimination Score ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Better Than

Articulation functions were generated on a normal-hearing population with the Auditec of St. Louis cassette recordings of the NU-6 and CID W-22 speech discrimination tests. Both tests were similar and yielded slopes of about 4.4%/dB. Each gave a speech discrimination score of approximately 95% at 32 dB SL. Speech reception thresholds were obtained with monitored live voice and yielded good testretest consistency. Speech thresholds were about 9 dB better than the ANSI (1969) specifications.

scholarly journals Development of Sound Field Audiometry System for Small Audiometric Booths and Comparison of Its Equivalence With Traditional System

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-35
Author(s):  
Eun Kyung Jung ◽  
Young Mi Choi ◽  
Eun Jung Kim ◽  
Sungsu Lee ◽  
Hyong-Ho Cho
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Sound Field ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Impaired Hearing ◽  
Hearing Results ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Hearing Thresholds ◽  
Head Height

Objectives. Sound field (SF) audiometry tests are usually conducted in audiometric booths measuring greater than 2×2 m in size. However, most private ENT clinics carry about 1×1-m-sized audiometric booths, making SF audiometry testing difficult to perform. The aims of this study were to develop an SF audiometry system for use in smaller audiometric booths and compare its performance with traditional system.Methods. The newly developed SF audiometry system can yield an SF signal at a distance of about 30 cm from the subject’s ears. Its height can be adjusted according to the subject’s head height. We compared SF hearing results between the new SF system and the traditional SF audiometry system in 20 adults with normal hearing (40 ears) and 24 adults with impaired hearing levels (38 ears) who wore hearing aids. Comparative parameters included warble tone audiometry threshold, a speech reception threshold (SRT), and a speech discrimination score (SDS). For statistical analysis, paired t-test was used. The equivalence of both SF systems was tested using two one-sided test (TOST) with a margin of 5 dB (normal hearing participants) and 10 dB (hearing aids wearing participants).Results. Among participants with normal hearing, warble tone hearing thresholds of 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz, average values of these four frequencies, and SRT were similar between the two systems (all <i>P</i>>0.05). Participants with hearing aids showed similar warble tone threshold and SRT (<i>P</i>>0.05) in both systems except for threshold of 4 kHz (<i>P</i>=0.033). SDS was significantly higher in the newly developed system (<i>P</i><0.05). TOST results showed equivalent SF audiometry results using either system.Conclusion. Audiometric results of the newly developed SF audiometry system were equivalent to those of a traditional system. Therefore, the small SF audiometry system can be used at small audiometric booths present in most private ENT clinics.

A Modification of the Tillman-Olsen Method for Obtaining the Speech Reception Threshold

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick N. Martin ◽  
Mary Lou Stauffer
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Pure Tone ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Pure Tone Audiogram ◽  
Experimenter Bias ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Time Required

Twenty normal-hearing subjects were tested to determine their speech reception thresholds (SRTs) using the Tillman-Olsen method and a modification of their method requiring no knowledge of the pure-tone audiogram from which to estimate the SRT. Varying amounts of attenuation were added to the line leading to the test earphone to minimize experimenter bias. The data revealed no significant differences between the two methods in either the SRTs themselves or the amount of time required to obtain them. A procedure is therefore advanced for clinicians wishing to measure SRTs without prior knowledge of pure-tone thresholds.

Effects of High-Frequency Cue Reduction on the Comprehension of Distorted Speech

1979 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Lacroix ◽  
J. Donald Harris
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Noise Masking ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Northwestern University ◽  
Speech Spectrum ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds

Forty-five subjects with sharply sloping sensorineural high-frequency hearing losses were examined for comprehension with a tape containing sentences that had been time-compressed (250 words/min), interrupted, (50 msec on-50 msec off), and masked with speech-spectrum noise (+ 2 dB S/N) in that order. All subjects yielded normal speech reception thresholds, and generally normal scores on the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6. Distorted-speech testing was completed at 40 dB SL. Subjects with losses at 2 kHz and above were able to comprehend only 50, 65, and 68% of compressed, interrupted, and noise-masked sentences, respectively. In contrast, subjects with losses at 3 kHz and above performed poorer than normal controls by 11.3, 12.5, and 8 percentage points respectively, while subjects within normal hearing sensitivity at 3 kHz performed as well as controls (maximum drop of 4.6 points with noise-masking). The multiplicative hypothesis was upheld in that the performance of subjects with severe high-frequency deficiencies was much poorer than one would predict on the basis of what is known about performance on these tests with either filtering alone or other distortions alone. These subjects, most especially those with severe frequency deficiencies, outperformed by up to 29 percentage points the mean scores of groups of normals given the same test items and distortion conditions, but listening through filtering that simulated the hearing loss of subjects in this study. It was suggested that hypacusics with high-frequency hearing losses can learn to use residual cues efficiently and that it is not altogether permissible to model sensorineural high-frequencv losses with normal-hearing subjects using frequency filtering.

scholarly journals The effect of guessing on the speech reception thresholds of chilldren

1990 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asoka Moodley
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Speech Audiometry ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Impaired Children

Speech audiometry is an essential part of the assessment of hearing impaired children and it is now widely used throughout the United Kingdom. Although instructions are universally agreed upon as an important aspect in the administration of any form of audiometric testing, there has been little, if any, research towards evaluating the influence which instructions that are given to a listener have on the Speech Reception Threshold obtained. This study attempts to evaluate what effect guessing has on the Speech Reception Threshold of children. A sample of 30 secondary school pupils between 16 and 18 years of age with normal hearing was used in the study. It is argued that the type of instruction normally used for Speech Reception Threshold in audiometric testing may not provide a sufficient amount of control for guessing and implications of this, using data obtained in the study, are examined.

scholarly journals The Effect of Dynamic Pitch on Speech Recognition in Temporally Modulated Noise

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (9) ◽  
pp. 2725-2739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Shen ◽  
Pamela E. Souza
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Temporal Modulation ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Speech Recognition In Noise

PurposeThis study investigated the effect of dynamic pitch in target speech on older and younger listeners' speech recognition in temporally modulated noise. First, we examined whether the benefit from dynamic-pitch cues depends on the temporal modulation of noise. Second, we tested whether older listeners can benefit from dynamic-pitch cues for speech recognition in noise. Last, we explored the individual factors that predict the amount of dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise.MethodYounger listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with varying levels of hearing sensitivity participated in the study, in which speech reception thresholds were measured with sentences in nonspeech noise.ResultsThe younger listeners benefited more from dynamic pitch for speech recognition in temporally modulated noise than unmodulated noise. Older listeners were able to benefit from the dynamic-pitch cues but received less benefit from noise modulation than the younger listeners. For those older listeners with hearing loss, the amount of hearing loss strongly predicted the dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise.ConclusionsDynamic-pitch cues aid speech recognition in noise, particularly when noise has temporal modulation. Hearing loss negatively affects the dynamic-pitch benefit to older listeners with significant hearing loss.

scholarly journals Older Listeners' Perception of Speech With Strengthened and Weakened Dynamic Pitch Cues in Background Noise

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-358
Author(s):  
Jing Shen
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Speech Perception In Noise ◽  
Speech In Noise ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Pitch Contours ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
Original Dynamic

Purpose Dynamic pitch, which is defined as the variation in fundamental frequency, is an acoustic cue that aids speech perception in noise. This study examined the effects of strengthened and weakened dynamic pitch cues on older listeners' speech perception in noise, as well as how these effects were modulated by individual factors including spectral perception ability. Method The experiment measured speech reception thresholds in noise in both younger listeners with normal hearing and older listeners whose hearing status ranged from near-normal hearing to mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss. The pitch contours of the target speech were manipulated to create four levels of dynamic pitch strength: weakened, original, mildly strengthened, and strengthened. Listeners' spectral perception ability was measured using tests of spectral ripple and frequency modulation discrimination. Results Both younger and older listeners performed worse with manipulated dynamic pitch cues than with original dynamic pitch. The effects of dynamic pitch on older listeners' speech recognition were associated with their age but not with their perception of spectral information. Those older listeners who were relatively younger were more negatively affected by dynamic pitch manipulations. Conclusions The findings suggest the current pitch manipulation strategy is detrimental for older listeners to perceive speech in noise, as compared to original dynamic pitch. While the influence of age on the effects of dynamic pitch is likely due to age-related declines in pitch perception, the spectral measures used in this study were not strong predictors for dynamic pitch effects. Taken together, these results indicate next steps in this line of work should be focused on how to manipulate acoustic cues in speech in order to improve speech perception in noise for older listeners.

scholarly journals Binaural (pre)processing for contralateral sound field attenuation and improved speech-in-noise recognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda ◽  
Almudena Eustaquio-Martín ◽  
Fernando Martín San Victoriano
Keyword(s):  
Sound Source ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Free Field ◽  
Sound Field ◽  
Directivity Pattern ◽  
Sound Sources ◽  
Speech In Noise ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Speech Reception Thresholds

ABSTRACTUnderstanding speech presented in competition with other sound sources can be challenging. Here, we reason that this task can be facilitated by improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in either of the two ears and that in free-field listening scenarios, this can be achieved by attenuating contralateral sounds. We present a binaural (pre)processing algorithm that improves the SNR in the ear ipsilateral to the target sound source by linear subtraction of the weighted contralateral stimulus. Although the weight is regarded as a free parameter, we justify setting it equal to the ratio of ipsilateral to contralateral head-related transfer functions averaged over an appropriate azimuth range. The algorithm is implemented in the frequency domain and evaluated technically and experimentally for normal-hearing listeners in simulated free-field conditions. Results show that (1) it can substantially improve the SNR (up to 20 dB) and the short-term intelligibility metric in the ear ipsilateral to the target source, particularly for speech-like maskers; (2) it can improve speech reception thresholds for sentences in competition with speech-shaped noise by up to 8.5 dB in bilateral listening and 10.0 dB in unilateral listening; (3) it hardly affects sound-source localization; and (4) the improvements, and the algorithm’s directivity pattern depend on the weights. The algorithm accounts qualitatively for binaural unmasking for speech in competition with multiple maskers and for multiple target-masker spatial arrangements, an unexpected property that can inspire binaural intelligibility models.

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