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Biomedical subjects

H Kunov

Publications and source records attributed to H Kunov.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Peripheral vision lipreading aid.

Lipreading provides a limited amount of information about speech signals to profoundly deaf people. Visual displays using peripheral vision as an alternative sensory modality can provide supplementary speech information. The utility of a cosmetically acceptable peripheral vision display was explored. A pair of eyeglasses with a commercially available two-dimensional red LED array (5 x 7), and its associated electronics was developed. The display is visible only to the wearer, and is located in the temporal field and the horizontal meridian of the right eye. Selected speech features were encoded as visual patterns for presentation to the lipreader. These features of the speech signal (the fundamental frequency of the speech, high-frequency energy, and low-passed speech signal or total energy envelope) were presented with the objective of providing information about voicing and plosion/frication. Experiments demonstrate the capability of the peripheral display in conveying speech information. Presenting vowel-consonant-vowel syllables, the performance was in excess of 76% with aided lipreading as compared to 41% by lipreading only.

Communication Devices for People with Disabilities↗
PubMed1991

Measurement of performance of a peripheral vision lipreading aid.

Lipreading, as the most important tool of speech understanding for profoundly deaf people, carries only a limited amount of information about speech. We explored the usefulness of a peripheral vision display in providing profoundly deaf people with supplementary information to lipreading. A pair of eye-glasses with a commercially available two-dimensional red LED array, and associated electronics was developed. The display is located on the rim of the eyeglasses in the temporal field and the horizontal meridian of the right eye. Selected speech features were encoded as visual patterns for presentation to the lipreader. These features (the fundamental frequency of the speech, high-frequency energy, and low-passed speech signal or total energy envelope) provide information about voicing and plosion/friction in order to supplement lipreading. Experiments with 3 normal and 5 deaf subjects demonstrated the capability of the aid to convey speech information for video taped vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) nonsense syllables. Average identification of 12 VCV syllables using the aid was about 76%, as compared with 40% without the aid.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

An acoustic head simulator for hearing protector evaluation. I: Design and construction.

As an alternative to subjective methods, an acoustic head simulator was constructed for hearing protector evaluation. The primary purpose of the device is for hearing protector testing and research under high-level steady-state and impulse noise environments. The design is based on the KEMAR manikin and therefore approximates the physical dimensions and the acoustical eardrum impedance of the median human adult. The head simulator includes a mechanical reproduction of the human circumaural and intraaural tissues with a silicone rubber material. A compliant head-neck system was constructed to approximate the vibrational characteristics of the human head in a sound field in order to simulate the inertia effect of earmuffs. The bone-conducted sounds are not mechanically reproduced in the design. Applications for the device are reported in a companion article [C. Giguère and H. Kunov, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 1197-1205 (1989)].

Auditory Threshold↗
PubMed1989

An acoustic head simulator for hearing protector evaluation. II: Measurements in steady-state and impulse noise environments.

The attenuation characteristics of hearing protection devices (HPDs) were measured using a modular acoustic head simulator. The effect in changes in the head configuration was assessed in a steady-state diffuse sound field. The use of artificial circumaural skin had a relatively small influence on the insertion loss of earmuffs (max. 6-7 dB at low frequencies). This contrasts to the very large effects found for the artificial intraaural skin on the insertion loss of earplugs (in excess of 40 dB at low frequencies for some devices). Results were also compared with real-ear attenuation at threshold (REAT) data (ANSI S3.19-1974). In general, there is good agreement between the two methods, especially for earmuffs. Design improvements are proposed for earplugs. The result of an exploratory study aimed at measuring the complex (amplitude and phase) insertion loss of HPDs using an impulse noise source are also reported.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1986

The use of a temporary extracochlear electrode in preoperative testing of permanent implant candidates.

This paper describes hearing and speech perception in 9 post-lingually deaf adults fitted with a temporary single electrode, surgically positioned close to the round window niche. After baseline testing, unaided and aided binaurally with the high-power Phonic Ear PE 845, each subject was admitted to hospital for a period of 7 days. During each test session, stimuli were presented directly to the electrode lead by means of an isolation unit. Current thresholds, upper tolerable limits and gap detection were measured for various acoustical waveforms and stimulus frequencies. A laryngograph was used to test the discrimination of prelinguistic and suprasegmental speech features. The results indicated that the prosthesis could provide acoustic sensations of loudness, pitch and duration that changed with stimulus waveform, level of current and frequency, and a gap threshold less than 50 msec. Lipreading appeared to be a necessary adjunct for consonant discrimination.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Disruptive effects of auditory signal delay on speech perception with lipreading.

The effect of auditory signal delay on audio-visual perception of videotaped sentence lists by Ss with normal hearing was measured. The test material consisted of sentences read by a man, with or without a picture representing as context one of the key words in each sentence. In Exper. I, 12 Ss (6M, 6F), inexperienced with lipreading, were presented test material in the audio-only (A), visual-only (V) and audio-visual (AV) modes. Speech signals were presented at 0 or -10 db S/N re a multitalker babble fixed at 60 dbA. The audio signal was delayed (re visual signal) in 6 steps from 0-300 msec. Exper. II repeated Exper. I with 6 Ss (2M, 4F) familiar with lipreading; the speech signal was presented at -5 db S/N and 4 audio delays from 0-240 msec. While these Ss performed better in the V mode than those in Exper. I, the main effects of context and delays were similar. The disruptive effect of the audio delay on speech perception with lipreading (AV mode) was a function of S/N, being relatively more disruptive at the worse S/N, but it was not significant for delays up to a range of 80-120 msec. The results are in agreement with the theory (McGrath and Summerfield, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 1985, 77, 678-685) that sensitivity to audio-visual desynchrony is significant only at a syllabic level in connected speech. The results further imply that moderate delays of up to 80 msec introduced by speech-processing aids for lipreading, as for cochlear-implanted patients, will not interfere with the advantages of providing the auditory information.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1977

The "eardrum artifact" in ipsilateral reflex measurements.

A source of error in ipsilateral reflex measurements with impedance methods is explained. It is shown that the inherent non-linearity of the cavity represented by the ear canal and tympanic membrane gives rise to an artifact in the measurement of acoustic impedance which is synchronous with the stimulus. The magnitude of the artifact increases with the intensity of the stimulus, but is relatively insensitive to the frequency of the stimulus. A practical method for measuring the magnitude of the artifact is described.

Acoustic Impedance Tests↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Tympanometry and acoustic impedance.

In recordings of the acoustic impedance of the middle ear (tympanometry) the change in air pressure in the ear canal will mostly influence the capacitive component of the acoustic impedance. By choosing a probe tone frequency close to the resonance frequency of the middle ear, characteristic tympanometric patterns can be demonstrated in certain middle ear lesions. The shapes of the curves are discussed in relation to the behaviour of the different components of the middle ear impedance.

Acoustic Stimulation↗