scholarly journals The Effect of Hearing Protection Devices on Speech Intelligibility of Persian Employees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects

Abstract Objective This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototype of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibilities during using HPDs were determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS). Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 22. Results The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47–84% for HPDs. The earmuffs show higher ratios of actual to nominal noise reduction compared with the earplugs. At two signal to noise ratios, no significant differences were observed in in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p > 0.05). However, at S/N = 0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07%. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N = 0(p < 0.05). It is concluded that, if the trend of signal to noise ratio is positive, the HPDs will reduce the ability to understand speech.

scholarly journals The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects

Abstract Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and +5). Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 22.Results: The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47% to 84% for HPDs. The earmuffs showed higher ratios of actual to nominal noise reduction compared with the earplugs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p >0.05). However, at S/N ratio=0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07 %. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio=0(p <0.05). It is concluded that, if the trend of signal to noise ratio is positive, the HPDs will reduce the ability to understand speech.

scholarly journals The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Noise Attenuation ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects ◽  
Speech Interference

Abstract Objective This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and + 5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22. Results The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47 to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p > 0.05). At S/N ratio = 0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been only improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07%. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio = 0 (p < 0.05). Increasing the HPDs' noise attenuation values led to an increase in speech interference (p < 0.05). The HPDs with the minimum required noise attenuation while maintaining acceptable speech intelligibility should be worn by employees exposed to medium noise levels.

scholarly journals The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Noise Attenuation ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects ◽  
Attenuation Values

Abstract Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and +5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.Results: The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47% to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p >0.05). At S/N ratio=0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been only improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07 %. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio=0 (p <0.05). Increase the HPDs' noise attenuation values lead to increase interference in the speech (p <0.05). The HPDs with the minimum required noise attenuation while maintaining acceptable speech intelligibility should be worn by employees exposed to medium noise levels.

scholarly journals The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Noise Attenuation ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects ◽  
Speech Interference

Abstract Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and +5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.Results: The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47% to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p >0.05). At S/N ratio=0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been only improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07 %. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio=0 (p <0.05). Increasing the HPDs' noise attenuation values led to an increase in speech interference (p <0.05). The HPDs with the minimum required noise attenuation while maintaining acceptable speech intelligibility should be worn by employees exposed to medium noise levels.

scholarly journals The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Karami ◽  
Mohsen Aliabadi ◽  
Rostam Golmohammadi ◽  
Morteza Hamidi Nahrani
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Hearing Protection ◽  
Noise Attenuation ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Protection Devices ◽  
Male Subjects ◽  
Attenuation Values

Abstract Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and +5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.Results: The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47% to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p >0.05). However, at S/N ratio=0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07 %. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio=0 (p <0.05). Increase the HPDs' noise attenuation values lead to increase interference in the speech (p <0.05). The HPDs with the minimum required noise attenuation while maintaining acceptable speech ineligibility should be worn by employees exposed to medium noise levels.

scholarly journals Enhancement of Speech Intelligibility using Binary Mask Based on Channel Selection Criteria

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 5123-5131
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Selection Criteria ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Random Noise ◽  
Wiener Filter ◽  
Gain Function ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Noise Reduction Algorithm

Most of the existing noise reduction algorithms used in hearing aid applications apply a gain function in order to reduce the noise intervention. In the present paper, we study the effect of the two types of speech distortions introduced by the gain functions. If these distortions are properly controlled large gains in intelligibility can be obtained. The sentences were corrupted by various kinds of noises i.e. babble noise, car noise, helicopter noise and random noise and processed through a noise-reduction algorithm. Subjective tests were conducted with normal hearing listeners by presenting the processed speech with controlled distortions. The method proposed by Kim et al uses the wiener filter. Here in this paper, we have used the parametric wiener filter. The experimental results clearly indicated improvement in intelligibility at 0dB, -5dB, +5dB and 10dB input signal-to-noise (SNR) values in short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) and Segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SSNR) objective measures.

Speech Reception in the Presence of Classroom Noise

1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 221-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Monosyllabic Words ◽  
Noise Ratio

Three hundred children from five to 12 years of age were required to discriminate simple, familiar, monosyllabic words under two conditions: 1) quiet, and 2) in the presence of background classroom noise. Of the sample, 45.3% made errors in speech discrimination in the presence of background classroom noise. The effect was most marked in children younger than seven years six months. The results are discussed considering the signal-to-noise ratio and the possible effects of unwanted classroom noise on learning processes.

scholarly journals Assessing Stability of Crutch Users by Non-Contact Methods

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 3001
Author(s):  
Achilles Vairis ◽  
Suzana Brown ◽  
Maurice Bess ◽  
Kyu Hyun Bae ◽  
Jonathan Boyack
Keyword(s):  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Time Derivative ◽  
Assistive Devices ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Physically Disabled ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Novice Users ◽  
Noise Ratio ◽  
Physically Disabled People

Enhancing gait stability in people who use crutches is paramount for their health. With the significant difference in gait compared to users who do not require an assistive device, the use of standard gait analysis tools to measure movement for temporary crush users and physically disabled people proves to be more challenging. In this paper, a novel approach based on video analysis is proposed as non-contact low-cost solution to the more expensive alternative with the data collected from processed videos, two values are calculated: the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of acceleration, and the Signal to Noise Ratio of the jerk (time derivative of acceleration), to assess the user’s stability while they walk with crutches. The adopted methodology has been tested on a total of 10 participants. Five are temporary users of assistive devices with one being a long-term user and the other four novice users, and five are disabled participants who use those assistive devices permanently. Preliminary results show differences between novice users, long-term users, and physically disabled users. The approach is promising and could improve the assessment of crutch user stability, allowing for the correction of gait for individuals while using an inexpensive non-contact setup and preventing unnecessary falls.

scholarly journals Noise reduction and signal-to-noise ratio improvement of atomic magnetometers with optical gradiometer configurations

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 6976 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keigo Kamada ◽  
Yosuke Ito ◽  
Sunao Ichihara ◽  
Natsuhiko Mizutani ◽  
Tetsuo Kobayashi
Keyword(s):  
Noise Reduction ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Noise Ratio

scholarly journals Evaluation of an Adaptive Dynamic Compensation System in Cochlear Implant Listeners

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 233121652097034
Author(s):  
Florian Langner ◽  
Andreas Büchner ◽  
Waldo Nogueira
Keyword(s):  
Signal Processing ◽  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Compensation System ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Dynamic Compensation ◽  
Front End ◽  
Noise Ratio

Cochlear implant (CI) sound processing typically uses a front-end automatic gain control (AGC), reducing the acoustic dynamic range (DR) to control the output level and protect the signal processing against large amplitude changes. It can also introduce distortions into the signal and does not allow a direct mapping between acoustic input and electric output. For speech in noise, a reduction in DR can result in lower speech intelligibility due to compressed modulations of speech. This study proposes to implement a CI signal processing scheme consisting of a full acoustic DR with adaptive properties to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and overall speech intelligibility. Measurements based on the Short-Time Objective Intelligibility measure and an electrodogram analysis, as well as behavioral tests in up to 10 CI users, were used to compare performance with a single-channel, dual-loop, front-end AGC and with an adaptive back-end multiband dynamic compensation system (Voice Guard [VG]). Speech intelligibility in quiet and at a +10 dB signal-to-noise ratio was assessed with the Hochmair–Schulz–Moser sentence test. A logatome discrimination task with different consonants was performed in quiet. Speech intelligibility was significantly higher in quiet for VG than for AGC, but intelligibility was similar in noise. Participants obtained significantly better scores with VG than AGC in the logatome discrimination task. The objective measurements predicted significantly better performance estimates for VG. Overall, a dynamic compensation system can outperform a single-stage compression (AGC + linear compression) for speech perception in quiet.

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