scholarly journals The benefit to speech intelligibility of hearing a familiar voice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ysabel Domingo ◽  
Emma Holmes ◽  
Ingrid Johnsrude

Previous experience with a voice can help listeners understand speech when a competing talker is present. Using the Coordinate-Response Measure (CRM) task (Bolia, 2000), Johnsrude et al. (2013) demonstrated that speech is more intelligible when either the target or competing (masking) talker is a long-term spouse than when both talkers are unfamiliar (termed ‘familiar-target’ and ‘familiar-masker’ benefits, respectively). To better understand how familiarity improves intelligibility, we measured the familiar-target and familiar-masker benefits in older and younger spouses using a more challenging matrix task, and compared the benefits listeners gain from spouses’ and friends’ voices. On each trial, participants heard two sentences from the Boston University Gerald (Kidd et al., 2008) corpus (“ ”) and reported words from the sentence beginning with a target name word. A familiar-masker benefit was not observed, but all groups showed a robust familiar-target benefit and its magnitude did not differ between spouses and friends. The familiar-target benefit was not influenced by relationship length (in the range of 0.5–52 years). Together, these results suggest that the familiar-target benefit can develop from various types of relationships and that it reaches a ceiling within several months of meeting a new friend or partner.

Author(s):  
Dan-Yu Lin ◽  
Donglin Zeng ◽  
Peter B Gilbert

Abstract Large-scale deployment of safe and durably effective vaccines can curtail the COVID-19 pandemic.1−3 However, the high vaccine efficacy (VE) reported by ongoing phase 3 placebo-controlled clinical trials is based on a median follow-up time of only about two months4−5 and thus does not pertain to long-term efficacy. To evaluate the duration of pro- tection while allowing trial participants timely access to efficacious vaccine, investigators can sequentially cross participants over from the placebo arm to the vaccine arm according to priority groups. Here, we show how to estimate potentially time-varying placebo-controlled VE in this type of staggered vaccination of participants. In addition, we compare the per- formance of blinded and unblinded crossover designs in estimating long-term VE.


1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Zion

Before sailing past the sirens' “flowery meadow,” Ulysses instructed his sailors to lash him to the mast so that he would not succumb to the siren's singing. His advance directive demonstrated that he valued his dispositional or long-term autonomy over his unquestioned right to make decisions. He also indicated to his oarsmen that he understood the nature of temptation and his inability to resist it. Ideas of autonomy and sexual choice are central to this discussion of new AIDS treatments, especially the trials of preventative vaccines. Questions arise over the rights of individuals and the extent that these should be limited by concerns of the gay community. Should the gay community intervene in the risky decisions of individuals if no explicit advance directive exists? If so, how do they justify their paternalism? Could their aims not be better served through strengthening the individual dispositional autonomy of trial participants rather than making specific claims about the common good?


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 200-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Castellanos ◽  
William G Kronenberger ◽  
Jessica Beer ◽  
Shirley C Henning ◽  
Bethany G Colson ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Wang ◽  
Chun Zhang ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Dong Huo ◽  
Xing Fan

PurposeThis study examines how unilateral supplier transaction-specific investments (TSIs), directly and indirectly, influence international buyer opportunism and the extent to which detailed contracts enable suppliers to safeguard against international buyer opportunism. The study also examines whether relationship length affects the efficacy of detailed contracts in cross-border outsourcing relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses are tested by using data collected from multiple informants working for 229 manufacturing suppliers in China. Multiple regression with a three-way interaction is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsUnilateral supplier TSIs encourage international buyer opportunism through increased supplier dependence. Contract specificity negatively moderates the effect of supplier dependence on international buyer opportunism. This moderating effect is stronger in long-term cross-border buyer–supplier relationships than in short-term ones.Originality/valueThe current study extends the cross-border outsourcing literature by examining how emerging-market suppliers in a weak power position can proactively safeguard against international buyer opportunism by using detailed contracts. Our findings show that supplier dependence mediates the relationship between unilateral supplier TSIs and international buyer opportunism; detailed contracts, however, can help dependent suppliers safeguard against international buyer opportunism. In particular, the findings highlight the importance of long-term buyer–supplier relationships that enhance the efficacy of detailed contracts.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Stein

Abstract This study analyzes the impact of bank relationships on a firm’s borrowing costs. We find that a firm’s borrowing costs decrease with relationship strength, proxied by the share of bank debt provided by the lender. Borrowing costs, however, rise with relationship length. While the increase over time is weak on average, bank-dependent borrowers face a substantial premium after several relationship years. Switching the lender initially leads to only a small price discount on average. However, the discount is considerable for borrowers that switch and had a strong relationship with their previous lender. Our results suggest that close lending relationships lead to benefits for the firm, but may also imply hold-up costs in the long term.


2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (12) ◽  
pp. 1221-1228
Author(s):  
Chunli Zhao ◽  
Jinsong Yang ◽  
Yujie Liu ◽  
Mengdie Gao ◽  
Peiwei Chen ◽  
...  

Objective: To evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of the Clip coupler attached to the stapes head in patients with unilateral congenital aural atresia (CAA). Methods: This single-center retrospective study included 16 Mandarin-speaking patients who had unilateral microtia accompanied by CAA. All patients were divided into two groups: the short-term follow-up group (n = 9) and the long-term follow-up group (n = 7). The floating mass transducer of the Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB) was positioned in the stapes head by the Clip coupler. The safety of the VSB was investigated by comparing preoperative and postoperative bone-conduction (BC) thresholds as well as by complications. The effectiveness was evaluated by functional gain (FG), word recognition score (WRS), speech reception threshold (SRT) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Results: Pre- and post-operative BC thresholds were no different in all patients. And no complications developed. VSB-aided thresholds in the free-field had improved significantly in both short- and long-term follow-up groups. The improvements of WRS were observed in two groups. The monosyllabic VSB-aided WRS in the long-term follow-up group was significantly higher than that in the short-term follow-up group. When speech was from the impaired ear and noise presented to the side of normal ear (SVSBNCL), lower SNRs were found in two groups after VSB implantation. However, there was no statistical difference in aided SNR between the two groups at SVSBNCL status. Conclusions: Our results show that the FMT connected to the stapes head is a secure and useful device for patients with unilateral CHL/MHL, not only in terms of improved hearing thresholds, but also improved speech intelligibility in quiet and noisy environments.


1992 ◽  
Vol 74 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1099-1104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee W. Ellis ◽  
Donald J. Fucci

10 speech-language pathologists with extensive experience in judging speakers' intelligibility and 10 control subjects with no such previous experience provided written identification and magnitude-estimation scaling judgments of the intelligibility of nine audiotaped speech samples. Analysis indicated no significant main effect for experience on either the written identification or the magnitude-estimation scaling tasks. Implications for the continued use of magnitude-estimation scaling as a measure of speech intelligibility are discussed.


1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne B. Simpson ◽  
James A. Till ◽  
Anne M. Goff

This case study describes the long-term treatment and changing symptoms in a single subject with dysarthria secondary to basilar artery thrombosis. Initially, the subject was anarthric. Treatment efforts thereafter were directed toward modifying speech respiration, velopharyngeal function, articulatory precision, speech intensity, and speech intelligibility. A variety of treatment and measurement techniques are illustrated. The behavioral change resulting from each of the treatments was small. However, when combined, these small gains in conjunction with some neurological recovery resulted in significantly improved communication and quality of life for this subject. Implications for management Of similar subjects are discussed.


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