Stimulus factors influencing the identification of voiced stop consonants by normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired adults

1988 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1608-1614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Mapes Lindholm ◽  
Michael Dorman ◽  
Bonnie Ellen Taylor ◽  
Maureen T. Hannley
Keyword(s):  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Factors Influencing

Detection and Recognition of Stop Consonants by Normal.Hearing and Hearing Impaired Listeners

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 942-949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Turner ◽  
David A. Fabry ◽  
Stephanie Barrett ◽  
Amy R. Horwitz
Keyword(s):  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Masking Noise ◽  
Noise Ratio ◽  
Detection And Recognition

This study examined the possibility that hearing-impaired listeners, in addition to displaying poorer-than-normal recognition of speech presented in background noise, require a larger signal-to-noise ratio for the detection of the speech sounds. Psychometric functions for the detection and recognition of stop consonants were obtained from both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Expressing the speech levels in terms of their short-term spectra, the detection of consonants for both subject groups occurred at the same signal-to-noise ratio. In contrast, the hearing-impaired listeners displayed poorer recognition performance than the normal-hearing listeners. These results imply that the higher signal-to-noise ratios required for a given level of recognition by some subjects with hearing loss are not due in part to a deficit in detection of the signals in the masking noise, but rather are due exclusively to a deficit in recognition.

Impact of Spectrally Asynchronous Delays on Consonant Voicing Perception

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (08) ◽  
pp. 493-511
Author(s):  
Amanda J. Ortmann ◽  
Catherine V. Palmer ◽  
Sheila R. Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Frequency Bands ◽  
Onset Asynchrony ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Consonant Voicing

Background: A possible voicing cue used to differentiate voiced and voiceless cognate pairs is envelope onset asynchrony (EOA). EOA is the time between the onsets of two frequency bands of energy (in this study one band was high-pass filtered at 3000 Hz, the other low-pass filtered at 350 Hz). This study assessed the perceptual impact of manipulating EOA on voicing perception of initial stop consonants, and whether normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners were sensitive to changes in EOA as a cue for voicing. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of spectrally asynchronous auditory delay on the perception of voicing associated with initial stop consonants by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Research Design: Prospective experimental study comparing the perceptual differences of manipulating the EOA cues for two groups of listeners. Study Sample: Thirty adults between the ages of 21 and 60 yr completed the study: 17 listeners with normal hearing and 13 listeners with mild-moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Data Collection and Analysis: The participants listened to voiced and voiceless stop consonants within a consonant-vowel syllable structure. The EOA of each syllable was varied along a continuum, and identification and discrimination tasks were used to determine if the EOA manipulation resulted in categorical shifts in voicing perception. In the identification task the participants identified the consonants as belonging to one of two categories (voiced or voiceless cognate). They also completed a same-different discrimination task with the same set of stimuli. Categorical perception was confirmed with a d-prime sensitivity measure by examining how accurately the results from the identification task predicted the discrimination results. The influence of EOA manipulations on the perception of voicing was determined from shifts in the identification functions and discrimination peaks along the EOA continuum. The two participant groups were compared in order to determine the impact of EOA on voicing perception as a function of syllable and hearing status. Results: Both groups of listeners demonstrated a categorical shift in voicing perception with manipulation of EOA for some of the syllables used in this study. That is, as the temporal onset asynchrony between low- and high-frequency bands of speech was manipulated, the listeners' perception of consonant voicing changed between voiced and voiceless categories. No significant differences were found between listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss as a result of the EOA manipulation. Conclusions: The results of this study suggested that both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners likely use spectrally asynchronous delays found in natural speech as a cue for voicing distinctions. While delays in modern hearing aids are less than those used in this study, possible implications are that additional asynchronous delays from digital signal processing or open-fitting amplification schemes might cause listeners with hearing loss to misperceive voicing cues.

Hearing Aid Amplification Reduces Communication Effort of People With Hearing Impairment and Their Conversation Partners

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1299-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Beechey ◽  
Jörg M. Buchholz ◽  
Gitte Keidser
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Directional Hearing ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
The Impact

Objectives This study investigates the hypothesis that hearing aid amplification reduces effort within conversation for both hearing aid wearers and their communication partners. Levels of effort, in the form of speech production modifications, required to maintain successful spoken communication in a range of acoustic environments are compared to earlier reported results measured in unaided conversation conditions. Design Fifteen young adult normal-hearing participants and 15 older adult hearing-impaired participants were tested in pairs. Each pair consisted of one young normal-hearing participant and one older hearing-impaired participant. Hearing-impaired participants received directional hearing aid amplification, according to their audiogram, via a master hearing aid with gain provided according to the NAL-NL2 fitting formula. Pairs of participants were required to take part in naturalistic conversations through the use of a referential communication task. Each pair took part in five conversations, each of 5-min duration. During each conversation, participants were exposed to one of five different realistic acoustic environments presented through highly open headphones. The ordering of acoustic environments across experimental blocks was pseudorandomized. Resulting recordings of conversational speech were analyzed to determine the magnitude of speech modifications, in terms of vocal level and spectrum, produced by normal-hearing talkers as a function of both acoustic environment and the degree of high-frequency average hearing impairment of their conversation partner. Results The magnitude of spectral modifications of speech produced by normal-hearing talkers during conversations with aided hearing-impaired interlocutors was smaller than the speech modifications observed during conversations between the same pairs of participants in the absence of hearing aid amplification. Conclusions The provision of hearing aid amplification reduces the effort required to maintain communication in adverse conditions. This reduction in effort provides benefit to hearing-impaired individuals and also to the conversation partners of hearing-impaired individuals. By considering the impact of amplification on both sides of dyadic conversations, this approach contributes to an increased understanding of the likely impact of hearing impairment on everyday communication.

scholarly journals Perception of Auditory Distance in Normal-Hearing and Moderate-to-Profound Hearing-Impaired Listeners

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651988761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Courtois ◽  
Vincent Grimaldi ◽  
Hervé Lissek ◽  
Philippe Estoppey ◽  
Eleftheria Georganti
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Linear Amplification ◽  
Profound Hearing Loss ◽  
Wireless Microphone ◽  
Auditory Distance ◽  
Non Linear

The auditory system allows the estimation of the distance to sound-emitting objects using multiple spatial cues. In virtual acoustics over headphones, a prerequisite to render auditory distance impression is sound externalization, which denotes the perception of synthesized stimuli outside of the head. Prior studies have found that listeners with mild-to-moderate hearing loss are able to perceive auditory distance and are sensitive to externalization. However, this ability may be degraded by certain factors, such as non-linear amplification in hearing aids or the use of a remote wireless microphone. In this study, 10 normal-hearing and 20 moderate-to-profound hearing-impaired listeners were instructed to estimate the distance of stimuli processed with different methods yielding various perceived auditory distances in the vicinity of the listeners. Two different configurations of non-linear amplification were implemented, and a novel feature aiming to restore a sense of distance in wireless microphone systems was tested. The results showed that the hearing-impaired listeners, even those with a profound hearing loss, were able to discriminate nearby and far sounds that were equalized in level. Their perception of auditory distance was however more contracted than in normal-hearing listeners. Non-linear amplification was found to distort the original spatial cues, but no adverse effect on the ratings of auditory distance was evident. Finally, it was shown that the novel feature was successful in allowing the hearing-impaired participants to perceive externalized sounds with wireless microphone systems.

Dissimilarity Ratings of English Consonants by Normally-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Individuals

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Danhauer ◽  
Ruth M. Lawarre
Keyword(s):  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Interval Scale ◽  
Individual Group ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Paired Stimuli ◽  
Loudness Level ◽  
Comfortable Loudness

Perceptual patterns in rating dissimilarities among 24 CVs were investigated for a group of normal-hearing and two groups of hearing-impaired subjects (one group with flat, and one group with sloping, sensorineural losses). Stimuli were presented binaurally at most comfortable loudness level and subjects rated the 576 paired stimuli on a 1–7 equal-appearing interval scale. Ratings were submitted to individual group and combined INDSCAL analyses to describe features used by the subjects in their perception of the speech stimuli. Results revealed features such as sibilant, sonorant, plosive and place. Furthermore, normal and hearing-impaired subjects used similar features, and subjects' weightings of features were relatively independent of their audiometric configurations. Results are compared to those of previous studies.

Second Formant Transitions of Selected Consonant-Vowel Combinations in the Speech of Deaf and Normal-Hearing Children

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall B. Monsen
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Target Frequency ◽  
Second Formant ◽  
Hearing Children

Although it is well known that the speech produced by the deaf is generally of low intelligibility, the sources of this low speech intelligibility have generally been ascribed either to aberrant articulation of phonemes or inappropriate prosody. This study was designed to determine to what extent a nonsegmental aspect of speech, formant transitions, may differ in the speech of the deaf and of the normal hearing. The initial second formant transitions of the vowels /i/ and /u/ after labial and alveolar consonants (/b, d, f/) were compared in the speech of six normal-hearing and six hearing-impaired adolescents. In the speech of the hearing-impaired subjects, the second formant transitions may be reduced both in time and in frequency. At its onset, the second formant may be nearer to its eventual target frequency than in the speech of the normal subjects. Since formant transitions are important acoustic cues for the adjacent consonants, reduced F 2 transitions may be an important factor in the low intelligibility of the speech of the deaf.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document