Department of Audiology Faculty Articles

Speech recognition in noise by hearing-impaired and noise-masked normal-hearing listeners.

ISSN

1050-0545

Publication Date

11-1-1995

Keywords

Adult, Audiometry, Pure-Tone, Hearing, Hearing Disorders, Humans, Middle Aged, Noise, Perceptual Masking, Speech Perception, Speech Reception Threshold Test

Abstract

A prevailing complaint among individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is difficulty understanding speech, particularly under adverse listening conditions. The present investigation compared the speech-recognition abilities of listeners with mild to moderate degrees of SNHL to normal-hearing individuals with simulated hearing impairments, accomplished using spectrally shaped masking noise. Speech-perception ability was assessed using the predictability-high sentences from the Speech Perception in Noise test. Results revealed significant differences between groups in sentential-recognition ability, with the hearing-impaired subjects performing poorer than the masked-normal listeners. These findings suggest the presence of a secondary distortion degrading sentential-recognition ability in the hearing impaired, implications of these data will be discussed concerning the mechanism(s) responsible for speech perception in the hearing impaired.

Volume

6

Issue

6

First Page

414

Last Page

424

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

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