A Relationship of Speech Perception and Amplification for Hearing-Impaired Listeners
1
조회
0
다운로드
1
인용
0
참고문헌
초록
Individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) are treated with hearing aids and/or a cochlear implant, based on their pure-tone thresholds and speech perception scores. Although these assistive listening devices do help those individuals communicate in quiet surroundings, many still have difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments. The purpose of current study is to compare results of consonant perception when using flat gain (or most comfortable level, MCL) and to see changes in consonant error rate occurred by hearing impairment after applying a frequency specific amplification. Twenty American English speakers with mild-to-moderate SNHL were tested. Isolated English consonant-vowel (CV) syllables,consisting of sixteen consonants followed by the /a/ vowel, were used as stimuli. They were presented monaurally in quiet and at five different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in speech-weighted noise. To compare the consonant error between ‘no NAL-R amplification’(flat gain) and ‘NAL-R amplification’ conditions, all subjects were tested in the two conditions. When simulating the NAL-R condition, its formula was calculated in two steps for each subject, by obtaining the required gain as a function of frequency. Overall consonant percent errors were decreased with NAL-R correction, compared to the no NAL-R conditions. When we look at the aided audibility and average consonant errors (or scores) after fitting a hearing aid, hearing-impaired (HI) speech perception seems better than before wearing the hearing aid. However, there is a significant difference among consonants: some consonants obtain great benefit from NAL-R and others do not. Also, subjects who have similar pure-tone audibility do not receive the same benefit from the amplification. We conclude that although current amplification fitting methods can offer positive benefit on average to the speech perception of HI listeners, they cannot offer equally positive benefits to every consonant and every HI listener.
Abstract
Individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) are treated with hearing aids and/or a cochlear implant, based on their pure-tone thresholds and speech perception scores. Although these assistive listening devices do help those individuals communicate in quiet surroundings, many still have difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments. The purpose of current study is to compare results of consonant perception when using flat gain (or most comfortable level, MCL) and to see changes in consonant error rate occurred by hearing impairment after applying a frequency specific amplification. Twenty American English speakers with mild-to-moderate SNHL were tested. Isolated English consonant-vowel (CV) syllables,consisting of sixteen consonants followed by the /a/ vowel, were used as stimuli. They were presented monaurally in quiet and at five different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in speech-weighted noise. To compare the consonant error between ‘no NAL-R amplification’(flat gain) and ‘NAL-R amplification’ conditions, all subjects were tested in the two conditions. When simulating the NAL-R condition, its formula was calculated in two steps for each subject, by obtaining the required gain as a function of frequency. Overall consonant percent errors were decreased with NAL-R correction, compared to the no NAL-R conditions. When we look at the aided audibility and average consonant errors (or scores) after fitting a hearing aid, hearing-impaired (HI) speech perception seems better than before wearing the hearing aid. However, there is a significant difference among consonants: some consonants obtain great benefit from NAL-R and others do not. Also, subjects who have similar pure-tone audibility do not receive the same benefit from the amplification. We conclude that although current amplification fitting methods can offer positive benefit on average to the speech perception of HI listeners, they cannot offer equally positive benefits to every consonant and every HI listener.
참고문헌 (25)
- Bacon S, "Modulation detection in subjects with relatively flat hearing losses", J Speech Hear Res, 35, pp.642~653 (1992)
- Carhart R, "The usefulness of the binaural hearing aid", J Speech Hear Disorder, 23, pp.42~51 (1958)
- Cox R, "Use of the Connected Speech Test (CST) with Hearing-Impaired Listeners", Ear Hear, 9, pp.198~207 (1988)
- Cox RM, "Development of the Connected Speech Test (CST)", Ear Hear, 8, pp.119~126 (1987)
- Dillon H, "Hearing Aids" (2001), Boomerang Press
- Dobie RA, "Noise induced hearing loss basic mechanisms, prevention, and control in Estimation of hearing loss severity from the audiogram", pp.351~363 (2001), NRN publications
- Dubno JR, "Evaluation of hearing-impaired listeners using a nonsense-syllable test. I. Test reliability", J Speech Hear Res, 25, pp.135~141 (1982)
- Dubno JR, "Evaluation of hearing- impaired listeners using a nonsense-syllable test. II. syllable recognition and consonant confusion patterns", J Speech Hear Res, 25, pp.141~148 (1982)
- Erber N, "Auditory-visual perception of speech", J Speech Hear Disorder, 40, pp.481~492 (1975)
- Fousek P, "New nonsense syllables database - Analyses and preliminary ASR experiments", The International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) (2004)
- Jenstad L, "Comparison of linear gain and wide dynamic range compression hearing aid circuits: Aided speech perception measures", Ear Hear, 20, pp.117~126 (1999)
- Kalikow DN, "Development of a test of speech intelligibility in noise using sentence materials with controlled word predictability", J Acoust Soc Am, 61, pp.1337~1351 (1977)
- Killion MC, "Development of a quick speech-in-noise test for measuring signal-to-noise ratio loss in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners", J Acoust Soc Am, 116, pp.2395~2405 (2004)
- Kochkin S, ""Why my hearing aids are in the drawer": The consumers' perspective", Hear J, 53, pp.34~41 (2000)
- MacKeith NW, "Binaural advantages in hearing of speech", J Laryng Otology, 85, pp.213~232 (1971)
- Miller GA, "An Analysis of Perceptual Confusions among some English Consonants", J Acoust Soc Am, 27, pp.338~352 (1955)
- Moore BCJ, "New version of the TEN test with calibrations in dB HL", Ear Hear, 25, pp.478~487 (2004)
- Moore BCJ, "Detection of frequency modulation by hearing-impaired listeners: Effects of carrier frequency, modulation rate, and added amplitude modulation", J Acoust Soc Am, 111, pp.327~335 (2002)
- Moore BCJ, "The use of psychophysical tuning curves to explore dead regions in the cochlea", Ear Hear, 22, pp.268~278 (2001)
- Nilsson M, "Development of the Hearing In Noise Test for the measurement of speech reception thresholds in quiet and in noise", J Acoust Soc Am, 95, pp.1085~1099 (1994)
- Plomp R, , J Speech Hear Res, 29, pp.146~154 (1986)
- Resnick SB, "Phoneme errors on a nonsense syllable test", J Acoust Soc Am, 58, pp.S114~ (1975)
- Ross M, "A picture identification test for hearing- impaired children", J Speech Hear Res, 13, pp.44~53 (1970)
- Tremblay K, "Neural representation of amplified speech sounds", Ear Hear, 27, pp.93~103 (2006)
- Welker D, "Microphone-array hearing aids with binaural output. II. A two-microphone adaptive system. Speech and Audio Processing", IEEE Transactions, 5, pp.543~551 (1997)