Variables that Influence the Recognition Performance of Interrupted Words: Rise-Fall Shape and Temporal Location of the Interruptions

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (07) ◽  
pp. 688-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Signal Frequency ◽  
Interrupted Speech ◽  
Word Onset ◽  
Temporal Location ◽  
Age Range

Background: The abrupt transition of a signal from off to on and vice versa typically produces spectral splatter that can mask other signals that are spectrally removed from the nominal signal frequency. Both the Miller and Licklider (1950) and Cherry (1953) studies of interrupted speech and alternated speech, respectively, acknowledged the generation of extraneous noise by the rapid on and off characteristics of their unshaped signals but noted for slower interruption rates (e.g., 10 interruptions per second); the masking effects were minimal. Recent studies of interrupted speech have avoided this issue by shaping the rise-fall times with a digital algorithm (e.g., Jin and Nelson, 2010; Wang and Humes, 2010). A second variable in the interrupted speech paradigm is the temporal location or placement of the interruptions (i.e., where in the waveform the interruptions occur). Here the issue is this: what parts of an utterance are necessary to enable intelligibility (e.g., Fogerty and Kewley-Port, 2009)? Interruptions may or may not disturb these necessary cues. Purpose: Here is the prompting question: do shaped and unshaped rise-fall characteristics of the on-segments of interrupted speech produce the same or different recognition performances? A second question arises: are recognition performances on complementary halves of an interrupted signal the same or different? Research Design: This study used a mixed-model design with two within-subject variables (unshaped and shaped rise-fall characteristic, complementary halves) and one between-subjects variable (listener group). Study Sample: A total of 12 young listeners (age range: 19–29 yr) with normal hearing and 12 older listeners (age range: 53–80 yr) with hearing loss for pure tones participated. Data Collection and Analysis: A total of 95 consonant-vowel nucleus-consonant words were interrupted (10 interruptions per second; 50% duty cycle) by parsing alternate 50 msec segments to separate files, which provided complementary temporal halves of the target word referenced to word onset; the first on-segment of the 0 msec condition started at word onset, whereas the first on-segment of the 50 msec condition started 50 msec after word onset. The interruption routine either applied no shaping of the 4 msec rise-fall times or a cos2 shape. Each listener received 25 practice words then a unique randomization of 280 interrupted words (70 words, 2 rise-fall shapes, and 2 interrupt onset conditions). Results: The listeners with normal hearing performed 8–16% better on the various comparable conditions than did the older listeners with hearing loss. The mean performance differences between shaped and unshaped rise-fall characteristics ranged from <1–3% and were not significant. Performance was significantly 10–17% better on the 0 msec condition than on the 50 msec condition. There was no significant interaction between the two main variables, rise-fall shape, and onset time of the interruptions. Conclusions: The rise-fall shape of the onset and offset of the on-segment of the interruption cycle does not affect recognition performance of words. The location of the interruptions in a word can have a significant effect on recognition performance.

Interrupted Monosyllabic Words: The Effects of Ten Interruption Locations on Recognition Performance by Older Listeners with Sensorineural Hearing Loss

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 068-079
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson ◽  
Kadie C. Sharrett
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing Loss ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
Monosyllabic Words ◽  
Word Onset ◽  
Temporal Location

AbstractTwo previous experiments from our laboratory with 70 interrupted monosyllabic words demonstrated that recognition performance was influenced by the temporal location of the interruption pattern. The interruption pattern (10 interruptions/sec, 50% duty cycle) was always the same and referenced word onset; the only difference between the patterns was the temporal location of the on- and off-segments of the interruption cycle. In the first study, both young and older listeners obtained better recognition performances when the initial on-segment coincided with word onset than when the initial on-segment was delayed by 50 msec. The second experiment with 24 young listeners detailed recognition performance as the interruption pattern was incremented in 10-msec steps through the 0- to 90-msec onset range. Across the onset conditions, 95% of the functions were either flat or U-shaped.To define the effects that interruption pattern locations had on word recognition by older listeners with sensorineural hearing loss as the interruption pattern incremented, re: word onset, from 0 to 90 msec in 10-msec steps.A repeated-measures design with ten interruption patterns (onset conditions) and one uninterruption condition.Twenty-four older males (mean = 69.6 yr) with sensorineural hearing loss participated in two 1-hour sessions. The three-frequency pure-tone average was 24.0 dB HL and word recognition was ≥80% correct.Seventy consonant-vowel nucleus-consonant words formed the corpus of materials with 25 additional words used for practice. For each participant, the 700 interrupted stimuli (70 words by 10 onset conditions), the 70 words uninterrupted, and two practice lists each were randomized and recorded on compact disc in 33 tracks of 25 words each.The data were analyzed at the participant and word levels and compared to the results obtained earlier on 24 young listeners with normal hearing. The mean recognition performance on the 70 words uninterrupted was 91.0% with an overall mean performance on the ten interruption conditions of 63.2% (range: 57.9–69.3%), compared to 80.4% (range: 73.0–87.7%) obtained earlier on the young adults. The best performances were at the extremes of the onset conditions. Standard deviations ranged from 22.1% to 28.1% (24 participants) and from 9.2% to 12.8% (70 words). An arithmetic algorithm categorized the shapes of the psychometric functions across the ten onset conditions. With the older participants in the current study, 40% of the functions were flat, 41.4% were U-shaped, and 18.6% were inverted U-shaped, which compared favorably to the function shapes by the young listeners in the earlier study of 50.0%, 41.4%, and 8.6%, respectively. There were two words on which the older listeners had 40% better performances.Collectively, the data are orderly, but at the individual word or participant level, the data are somewhat volatile, which may reflect auditory processing differences between the participant groups. The diversity of recognition performances by the older listeners on the ten interruption conditions with each of the 70 words supports the notion that the term hearing loss is inclusive of processes well beyond the filtering produced by end-organ sensitivity deficits.

Speech Recognition in Multitalker Babble Using Digits, Words, and Sentences

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (09) ◽  
pp. 726-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel A. McArdle ◽  
Richard H. Wilson ◽  
Christopher A. Burks
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Item Questionnaire ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Speech Recognition In Noise ◽  
Better Than

The purpose of this mixed model design was to examine recognition performance differences when measuring speech recognition in multitalker babble on listeners with normal hearing (n = 36) and listeners with hearing loss (n = 72) utilizing stimulus of varying linguistic complexity (digits, words, and sentence materials). All listeners were administered two trials of two lists of each material in a descending speech-to-babble ratio. For each of the materials, recognition performances by the listeners with normal hearing were significantly better than the performances by the listeners with hearing loss. The mean separation between groups at the 50% point in signal-to-babble ratio on each of the three materials was ~8 dB. The 50% points for digits were obtained at a significantly lower signal-to-babble ratio than for sentences or words that were equivalent. There were no interlist differences between the two lists for the digits and words, but there was a significant disparity between QuickSIN™ lists for the listeners with hearing loss. A two-item questionnaire was used to obtain a subjective measurement of speech recognition, which showed moderate correlations with objective measures of speech recognition in noise using digits (r = .641), sentences (r = .572), and words (r = .673).

scholarly journals Perception–Production Links in Children's Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna H. Lowenstein ◽  
Susan Nittrouer
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Spectral Measures ◽  
Signal Degradation ◽  
Children With Hearing Loss ◽  
Production Capacities

Purpose Child phonologists have long been interested in how tightly speech input constrains the speech production capacities of young children, and the question acquires clinical significance when children with hearing loss are considered. Children with sensorineural hearing loss often show differences in the spectral and temporal structures of their speech production, compared to children with normal hearing. The current study was designed to investigate the extent to which this problem can be explained by signal degradation. Method Ten 5-year-olds with normal hearing were recorded imitating 120 three-syllable nonwords presented in unprocessed form and as noise-vocoded signals. Target segments consisted of fricatives, stops, and vowels. Several measures were made: 2 duration measures (voice onset time and fricative length) and 4 spectral measures involving 2 segments (1st and 3rd moments of fricatives and 1st and 2nd formant frequencies for the point vowels). Results All spectral measures were affected by signal degradation, with vowel production showing the largest effects. Although a change in voice onset time was observed with vocoded signals for /d/, voicing category was not affected. Fricative duration remained constant. Conclusions Results support the hypothesis that quality of the input signal constrains the speech production capacities of young children. Consequently, it can be concluded that the production problems of children with hearing loss—including those with cochlear implants—can be explained to some extent by the degradation in the signal they hear. However, experience with both speech perception and production likely plays a role as well.

Selected Cognitive Factors and Speech Recognition Performance Among Young and Elderly Listeners

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Peter J. Fitzgibbons
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Word Recall ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Sentence Recall

The influence of selected cognitive factors on age-related changes in speech recognition was examined by measuring the effects of recall task, speech rate, and availability of contextual cues on recognition performance by young and elderly listeners. Stimuli were low and high context sentences from the R-SPIN test presented at normal and slowed speech rates in noise. Response modes were final word recall and sentence recall. The effects of hearing loss and age were examined by comparing performances of young and elderly listeners with normal hearing and young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. Listeners with hearing loss performed more poorly than listeners with normal hearing in nearly every condition. In addition, elderly listeners exhibited poorer performance than younger listeners on the sentence recall task, but not on the word recall task, indicating that added memory demands have a detrimental effect on elderly listeners' performance. Slowing of speech rate did not have a differential effect on performance of young and elderly listeners. All listeners performed well when stimulus contextual cues were available. Taken together, these results support the notion that the performance of elderly listeners with hearing loss is influenced by a combination of auditory processing factors, memory demands, and speech contextual information.

Word-Recognition Performance in Interrupted Noise by Young Listeners with Normal Hearing and Older Listeners with Hearing Loss

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 090-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson ◽  
Rachel McArdle ◽  
Mavie B. Betancourt ◽  
Kaileen Herring ◽  
Teresa Lipton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Duty Cycle ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Speech In Noise ◽  
Duty Cycles ◽  
Continuous Noise

Background: The most common complaint of adults with hearing loss is understanding speech in noise. One class of masker that may be particularly useful in the assessment of speech-in-noise abilities is interrupted noise. Interrupted noise usually is a continuous noise that has been multiplied by a square wave that produces alternating intervals of noise and silence. Wilson and Carhart found that spondaic word thresholds for listeners with normal hearing were 28 dB lower in an interrupted noise than in a continuous noise, whereas listeners with hearing loss experienced only an 11 dB difference. Purpose: The purpose of this series of experiments was to determine if a speech-in-interrupted-noise paradigm differentiates better (1) between listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss and (2) among listeners with hearing loss than do traditional speech-in-continuous-noise tasks. Research Design: Four descriptive/quasi-experimental studies were conducted. Study Sample: Sixty young adults with normal hearing and 144 older adults with pure-tone hearing losses participated. Data Collection and Analysis: A 4.3 sec sample of speech-spectrum noise was constructed digitally to form the 0 interruptions per second (ips; continuous) noise and the 5, 10, and 20 ips noises with 50% duty cycles. The noise samples were mixed digitally with the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 words at selected signal-to-noise ratios and recorded on CD. The materials were presented through an earphone, and the responses were recorded and analyzed at the word level. Similar techniques were used for the stimuli in the remaining experiments. Results: In Experiment 1, using 0 ips as the reference condition, the listeners with normal hearing achieved 34.0, 30.2, and 28.4 dB escape from masking for 5, 10, and 20 ips, respectively. In contrast, the listeners with hearing loss only achieved 2.1 to 2.4 dB escape from masking. Experiment 2 studied the 0 and 5 ips conditions on 72 older listeners with hearing loss, who were on average 13 yr younger and more varied in their hearing loss than the listeners in Experiment 1. The mean escape from masking in Experiment 2 was 7 dB, which is 20–25 dB less than the escape achieved by listeners with normal hearing. Experiment 3 examined the effects that duty cycle (0–100% in 10% steps) had on recognition performance in the 5 and 10 ips conditions. On the 12 young listeners with normal hearing, (1) the 50% correct point increased almost linearly between the 0 and 60% duty cycles (slope = 4.2 dB per 10% increase in duty cycle), (2) the slope of the function was steeper between 60 and 80% duty cycles, and (3) about the same masking was achieved for the 80–100% duty cycles. The data from the listeners with hearing loss were inconclusive. Experiment 4 varied the interburst ratios (0, –6, –12, –24, –48, and –∞ dB) of 5 ips noise and evaluated recognition performance by 24 young adults. The 50% points were described by a linear regression (R 2 = 0.98) with a slope of 0.55 dB/dB. Conclusion: The current data indicate that interrupted noise does provide a better differentiation both between listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss and among listeners with hearing loss than is provided by continuous noise.

Korean Clear Speech Improves Speech Intelligibility for Individuals with Normal Hearing and Individuals with Hearing Loss

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su Yeon Shin ◽  
Hongyeop Oh ◽  
In-Ki Jin
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Conversational Speech ◽  
Clear Speech ◽  
Mixed Model Analysis ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Abstract Background Clear speech is an effective communication strategy to improve speech intelligibility. While clear speech in several languages has been shown to significantly benefit intelligibility among listeners with differential hearing sensitivities and across environments of different noise levels, whether these results apply to Korean clear speech is unclear on account of the language's unique acoustic and linguistic characteristics. Purpose This study aimed to measure the intelligibility benefits of Korean clear speech relative to those of conversational speech among listeners with normal hearing and hearing loss. Research Design We used a mixed-model design that included both within-subject (effects of speaking style and listening condition) and between-subject (hearing status) elements. Data Collection and Analysis We compared the rationalized arcsine unit scores, which were transformed from the number of keywords recognized and repeated, between clear and conversational speech in groups with different hearing sensitivities across five listening conditions (quiet and 10, 5, 0, and –5 dB signal-to-noise ratio) using a mixed model analysis. Results The intelligibility scores of Korean clear speech were significantly higher than those of conversational speech under most listening conditions in all groups; the former yielded increases of 6 to 32 rationalized arcsine units in intelligibility. Conclusion The present study provides information on the actual benefits of Korean clear speech for listeners with varying hearing sensitivities. Audiologists or hearing professionals may use this information to establish communication strategies for Korean patients with hearing loss.

Development of a Speech-in-Multitalker-Babble Paradigm to Assess Word-Recognition Performance

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (09) ◽  
pp. 453-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Presentation Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Binaural Listening

A simple word-recognition task in multitalker babble for clinic use was developed in the course of four experiments involving listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss. In Experiments 1 and 2, psychometric functions for the individual NU No. 6 words from Lists 2, 3, and 4 were obtained with each word in a unique segment of multitalker babble. The test paradigm that emerged involved ten words at each of seven signal-to-babble ratios (S/B) from 0 to 24 dB. Experiment 3 examined the effect that babble presentation level (70, 80, and 90 dB SPL) had on recognition performance in babble, whereas Experiment 4 studied the effect that monaural and binaural listening had on recognition performance. For listeners with normal hearing, the 90th percentile was 6 dB S/B. In comparison to the listeners with normal hearing, the 50% correct points on the functions for listeners with hearing loss were at 5 to 15 dB higher signal-to-babble ratios.

The 500 Hz Masking-Level Difference and Word Recognition in Multitalker Babble for 40- to 89-Year-Old Listeners with Symmetrical Sensorineural Hearing Loss

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (06) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson ◽  
Deborah G. Weakley
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing Loss ◽  
Pure Tone ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing ◽  
Systematic Relationship ◽  
Masking Level Difference

The purpose of this study was to determine if performances on a 500 Hz MLD task and a word-recognition task in multitalker babble covaried or varied independently for listeners with normal hearing and for listeners with hearing loss. Young listeners with normal hearing (n = 25) and older listeners (25 per decade from 40–80 years, n = 125) with sensorineural hearing loss were studied. Thresholds at 500 and 1000 Hz were ≤30 dB HL and ≤40 dB HL, respectively, with thresholds above 1000 Hz <100 dB HL. There was no systematic relationship between the 500 Hz MLD and word-recognition performance in multitalker babble. Higher SoNo and SπNo; thresholds were observed for the older listeners, but the MLDs were the same for all groups. Word recognition in babble in terms of signal-to-babble ratio was on average 6.5 (40- to 49-year-old group) to 10.8 dB (80- to 89-year-old group) poorer for the older listeners with hearing loss. Neither pure-tone thresholds nor word-recognition abilities in quiet accurately predicted word-recognition performance in multitalker babble.

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