The influence of informational masking on speech perception and pupil response in adults with hearing impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 135 (3) ◽  
pp. 1596-1606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Koelewijn ◽  
Adriana A. Zekveld ◽  
Joost M. Festen ◽  
Sophia E. Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Informational Masking ◽  
Pupil Response

The Effect of Conventional and Transparent Surgical Masks on Speech Understanding in Individuals with and without Hearing Loss

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 058-067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel R. Atcherson ◽  
Lisa Lucks Mendel ◽  
Wesley J. Baltimore ◽  
Chhayakanta Patro ◽  
Sungmin Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Speech Understanding ◽  
Profound Hearing Loss ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Surgical Masks ◽  
Significant Difference

AbstractIt is generally well known that speech perception is often improved with integrated audiovisual input whether in quiet or in noise. In many health-care environments, however, conventional surgical masks block visual access to the mouth and obscure other potential facial cues. In addition, these environments can be noisy. Although these masks may not alter the acoustic properties, the presence of noise in addition to the lack of visual input can have a deleterious effect on speech understanding. A transparent (“see-through”) surgical mask may help to overcome this issue.To compare the effect of noise and various visual input conditions on speech understanding for listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing impairment using different surgical masks.Participants were assigned to one of three groups based on hearing sensitivity in this quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study.A total of 31 adults participated in this study: one talker, ten listeners with NH, ten listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss, and ten listeners with severe-to-profound hearing loss.Selected lists from the Connected Speech Test were digitally recorded with and without surgical masks and then presented to the listeners at 65 dB HL in five conditions against a background of four-talker babble (+10 dB SNR): without a mask (auditory only), without a mask (auditory and visual), with a transparent mask (auditory only), with a transparent mask (auditory and visual), and with a paper mask (auditory only).A significant difference was found in the spectral analyses of the speech stimuli with and without the masks; however, no more than ∼2 dB root mean square. Listeners with NH performed consistently well across all conditions. Both groups of listeners with hearing impairment benefitted from visual input from the transparent mask. The magnitude of improvement in speech perception in noise was greatest for the severe-to-profound group.Findings confirm improved speech perception performance in noise for listeners with hearing impairment when visual input is provided using a transparent surgical mask. Most importantly, the use of the transparent mask did not negatively affect speech perception performance in noise.

Informational masking with speech-on-speech intelligibility: Pupil response and time-course of learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 149 (4) ◽  
pp. 2353-2366
Author(s):  
Niek J. Versfeld ◽  
Sisi Lie ◽  
Sophia E. Kramer ◽  
Adriana A. Zekveld
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Informational Masking ◽  
Pupil Response

Speech Understanding Using Surgical Masks: A Problem in Health Care?

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (09) ◽  
pp. 686-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Lucks Mendel ◽  
Julie A. Gardino ◽  
Samuel R. Atcherson
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Deleterious Effect ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Speech Understanding ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Dental Office ◽  
Significant Difference

Background: Successful communication is necessary in health-care environments. Yet the presence of noise in hospitals, operating rooms, and dental offices may have a deleterious effect on health-care personnel and patients understanding messages accurately. The presence of a surgical mask and hearing loss may further affect speech perception. Purpose: To evaluate whether a surgical mask had an effect on speech understanding for listeners with normal hearing and hearing impairment when speech stimuli were administered in the presence or absence of dental office noise. Research Design: Participants were assigned to one of two groups based on hearing sensitivity in this quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study. Study Sample: A total of 31 adults participated in this study (1 talker, 15 listeners with normal hearing, and 15 with hearing impairment). The normal hearing group had thresholds of 25 dB HL or better at the octave frequencies from 250 through 8000 Hz while the hearing loss group had varying degrees and configurations of hearing loss with thresholds equal to or poorer than 25 dB HL for the same octave frequencies. Data Collection And Analysis: Selected lists from the Connected Speech Test (CST) were digitally recorded with and without a surgical mask present and then presented to the listeners in four conditions: without a mask in quiet, without a mask in noise, with a mask in quiet, and with a mask in noise. Results: A significant difference was found in the spectral analyses of the speech stimuli with and without the mask. The presence of a surgical mask, however, did not have a detrimental effect on speech understanding in either the normal-hearing or hearing-impaired groups. The dental office noise did have a significant effect on speech understanding for both groups. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the presence of a surgical mask did not negatively affect speech understanding. However, the presence of noise did have a deleterious effect on speech perception and warrants further attention in health-care environments.

Enhanced Speechreading Performance in Young Hearing Aid Users in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianghua Lei ◽  
Huina Gong ◽  
Liang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Visual Speech ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Visual Speech Perception

Purpose The study was designed primarily to determine if the use of hearing aids (HAs) in individuals with hearing impairment in China would affect their speechreading performance. Method Sixty-seven young adults with hearing impairment with HAs and 78 young adults with hearing impairment without HAs completed newly developed Chinese speechreading tests targeting 3 linguistic levels (i.e., words, phrases, and sentences). Results Groups with HAs were more accurate at speechreading than groups without HA across the 3 linguistic levels. For both groups, speechreading accuracy was higher for phrases than words and sentences, and speechreading speed was slower for sentences than words and phrases. Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between years of HA use and the accuracy of speechreading performance; longer HA use was associated with more accurate speechreading. Conclusions Young HA users in China have enhanced speechreading performance over their peers with hearing impairment who are not HA users. This result argues against the perceptual dependence hypothesis that suggests greater dependence on visual information leads to improvement in visual speech perception.

Speech Perception in a Communicative Context

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 540-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark C. Flynn ◽  
Richard C. Dowell
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Time Delay ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Open Set ◽  
Stimulus Sentence ◽  
Question And Answer ◽  
Actual Speech ◽  
S Period ◽  
Communicative Context

By diminishing the role of communicative context, traditional tests of speech perception may underestimate or misrepresent the actual speech perception abilities of adults with a hearing impairment. This study investigates this contention by devising an assessment that may better simulate some aspects of "reallife" speech perception. A group of 31 participants with a severe-to-profound hearing impairment took part in a series of speech perception tests while wearing their hearing aids. The tests used question/answer or adjacency pairs, where the stimulus sentence was preceded by a question spoken by the participant. Four conditions were included: (a) where there was no initiating sentence, as in a traditional open-set speech perception test; (b) where the initiating question was neutral (e.g. "Why?"); (c) where there was a disruptive semantic relationship between the question and answer; and (d) where there was a strong contextual relationship between the question and answer. The time delay between the question and answer was also varied. Results demonstrated that in all conditions where there was a preceding question speech perception improved, and increasing the cohesion between the question and the reply improved speech perception scores. Additionally, time delay and the relatedness of the reply interacted. The effects of semantic context appeared to diminish over a 10-s period while other linguistic effects remained more constant. These results indicate the utility of simulating communicative environments within speech perception tests.

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