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Results for “Speech Reception Threshold Test”

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PubMed1983

Word frequency effects for a closed-set word identification task.

Previous work demonstrated that adults achieved higher performance scores than young children on a 4-alternative forced-choice (4 AFC), picture-pointing speech identification task even though all stimuli (words and pictures) had been developed to be familiar to 3-year-old inner-city children. It was hypothesized that these results reflected 'word frequency effects' in the sense that, even though children knew the words, adults had much greater experience with the stimuli and, consequently, required less acoustic information for correct performance. In the current study, this hypothesis of word frequency effects was tested by creating new materials in which the stimulus items (recorded words and pictures) remained the same but new picture foils representing less frequently occurring words replaced the incorrect response alternatives. According to Broadbent's word frequency, response bias views, it was hypothesized that adults would show improved performance on the modified test materials, compared to the original ones. Data supported this hypothesis and also showed that, in children, the magnitude of word frequency effects is related to receptive vocabulary skills. This phenomenon needs to be considered in developing clinical tests of speech or language that have a closed-set format.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1981

Evaluation of binaural hearing aids in children using localization and speech intelligibility tasks.

Because of an assumed relationship between localization and speech intelligibility in noise it has been suggested that a localization test provides a suitable measure for the evaluation of binaural aids in everyday situations. The present study shows a significant correlation (a) between binaural advantage in a localization task and the binaural advantage in speech intelligibility in noise task, and (b) between binaural advantage in judgement of separation of speech and noise and binaural advantage in a speech intelligibility in noise task. However, neither relationship was strong enough for accurate individual prediction of binaural advantages in speech intelligibility. Possible reasons for this are discussed, and the lines that further research might follow are suggested.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Word recognition and the articulation index in older listeners with probable age-related auditory neuropathy.

This retrospective analysis of existing data was derived from 957 members of a population-based cohort who participated in a prior study of the prevalence of central auditory dysfunction. Word recognition scores (WRS) at three intensity levels were compared to predicted scores based on the Articulation Index (AI) and the Thornton-Raffin 95 percent critical differences. In 112 (11.7 percent) participants, one or more word recognition scores were significantly below the predicted score, which we consider a subtle sign of possible auditory neuropathy. In contrast, classic signs of retrocochlear dysfunction were found in only three people (0.3 percent) using rollover of the performance-intensity function for phonetically balanced word lists, in two (0.2 percent) people using the guideline of Yellin et al (1989), and in 54 people (5.6%) using a 20-point difference between the AI (x 100) and the WRS. Subtle signs of possible auditory neuropathy were more frequent than the classic signs. Comparing WRS at several high presentation levels to the AI is suggested as a method to screen for subtle neuropathy. Elderly listeners whose WRS fall below the Thornton-Raffin 95 percent critical difference based on AI should be considered for further testing for age-related auditory neuropathy.

Aged↗

PubMed1999

Comparison of performance with wide dynamic range compression and linear amplification.

This study compared subject performance and preference using a compression-limiting hearing aid set to linear amplification (program 1) and wide dynamic range compression (WDRC, program 2). The frequency responses of the hearing aid were matched to a 65 dB SPL signal and maximum output to a 90 dB SPL signal. Twenty subjects with moderate to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss were tested. Speech recognition scores and speech reception thresholds were obtained both in quiet and in noise. Subjective preference for WDRC or linear amplification was measured via a paired-comparison procedure on "loudness appropriateness," "clarity," and "pleasantness" to continuous discourse presented in quiet and in noise. Results suggested that WDRC yielded better speech intelligibility in quiet for low-level signals and no difference in speech intelligibility in noise compared to linear amplification. Subjects preferred WDRC for loudness to both high- and low-level signals and for pleasantness to high-level signals.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

The effect of the speaker gender on speech intelligibility in normal-hearing subjects with simulated high frequency hearing loss.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether speaker gender affects speech discrimination scores, in normal hearing and simulated high frequency hearing loss situations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Listeners were twenty normal volunteers. The speech stimuli were eight phonetically balanced monosyllabic word lists, uttered by a male and a female speakers. These lists were low-pass filtered at 1500, 2500 and 3500 Hz's to represent high frequency hearing loss. To obtain speech discrimination scores, the subjects listened to each of the eight lists in a different filtering and talker conditions in a randomized order. For statistical analysis, Mann-Whitney U test was used. RESULTS: In normal hearing situation, the scores obtained by male and female speeches, were similar (p=0.60). On the contrary, statistically significant differences were observed in all of the three high frequency hearing loss situations (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: Female speech is significantly more difficult to discriminate than male speech in normal-hearing subjects with simulated high frequency hearing loss and probably in patients with high frequency hearing loss.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Cochlear implant hearing performance at the University of Minnesota.

The hearing performance of six post-lingually deaf adults implanted with the Nucleus 22-channel device are presented. All patients achieved measurable open set speech recognition with implant alone. The best hearing performance was achieved with a combination of lipreading and cochlear implant. For this condition our group achieved an average open set speech discrimination score of 85% (CID sentences) and an average speech tracking rate of 70 words per minute. We attribute the success of our group to careful pre-operative selection, including attention to candidate motivation toward hearing rehabilitation.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Bisensory vs summed-unisensory improvement on two speech-reception tasks.

It is known that in speech reception tasks, when performance scores in the auditory-only (A) mode and the visual-only (V) mode are simply added, the result will be substantially less than when eyes and ears can simultaneously process the stimuli (A/V mode). However, it is not known whether the improvement with practice and/or training with feedback is greater in the A+V or the A/V mode. Normal young adults (N:20) watched and listened in the A/V mode and responded to 100 key words in sentences spoken by a man on a 25-inch color TV at a distance of 6 ft, both before and after training with feedback on other lists of 100 key words. In the training condition, half the Ss were given the A mode first, half the V mode. Within the training condition, pre- and post-training test phases of 100 key words each had a training phase intervening in which feedback was given on 100 different key words. Performance significantly improved from 28.8% to 35.0% words correct within the training condition, averaged over A and V mode (6.2%; p less than .001), but it improved from 68.5% to 86.0% (= 17.5%; p less than .001) in the pre- vs post-training comparison for the A/V mode. The difference of 11.3% in favor of the A/V mode was significant (p less than .01). Essentially zero correlation was found between individual improvements in the A+V vs the A/V mode. The acquisition and utilization of A, V, and A/V skills are independent and specific. Each mode may have its optimum set of training conditions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

[Auditory localization and speech perception in noise. Preliminary study concerning 5 cases of perceptual deafness].

The experiments reported here examine the psychoacoustical bases for poor speech perception in noise by persons with sensorineural impairment. Two major hypotheses are tested. First, because persons with cochlear impairment are less able than normal-hearing persons to separate out incoming signals on the basis of spectral differences (a deficit referred to as reduced frequency selectivity), they are less able to localize one sound in the presence of other sounds. Second, this reduced localization ability makes it difficult for the hearing-impaired person to take advantage of the spatial separation of a target speech source and other interfering sources. Such separation is common in real environments and facilitates speech perception by normal-hearing persons. Tests of these hypotheses are conducted by means of detailed psychoacoustical measures of frequency selectivity, of localization and speech perception under masking.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1981

Practice effects for normal listeners' performance on a nonsense syllable test.

Each of 4 groups (N: 5) of normal-hearing young adults responded to the consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel Nonsense Syllable Test (Edgerton and Danhauer, 1979). Groups I and II on any one day for 5 consecutive days received one presentation of both Lists A and B at 16 and at 56 db re individual SRT, with (Group II) or without (Group I) visual reinforcement as to the correctness of the response. Groups III and IV received 15 randomizations of List A (non-reinforced) in a single session at 16 or 56 db SL, respectively. S's were tested individually diotically; verbal responses were phonetically transcribed using both audio and visual cues, and were scored phonetically. There were no significant differences in means between Groups I vs II as a result of reinforcement, but differences were noted in both groups for presentation levels and trials (days). No practice effects were noted in Groups III and IV. The NST may be used for multiple administrations within a single session, as in deriving performance-intensity functions, or in hearing aid evaluations, without biases due to practice.

Adult↗

PubMed1981

Speech discrimination scores at low sensation levels as a possible index of malingering.

Persons referred to the clinic for hearing evaluation, aged 17--35 yrs, who during the evaluation yielded inconsistent pure-tone and speech data and were suspected of malingering, were given a monosyllabic Hebraic PB test at 5, 10, 15, and 20 db re their admitted SRT. Group performances were compared at every presentation level to those of normal-hearing young adults. Both groups performed better as levels increased, but the suspected malingerers yielded SDSs at 5, 10, and 15 db significantly higher than controls by 20.8, 12.5, and 5.2 percentage points, respectively. The higher SDSs at low sensation levels (SLs) yielded by the suspected malingerers were assumed to be due to the exaggerated SRTs admitted by them. Furthermore, the performance - vs - level curve of the normals corresponded to that in the literature for English material, while the curve of the suspected malingerers was, in contrast, essentially different. It was concluded that with careful standardization and wide clinical and experimental use, collecting SDSs at low SLs re admitted SRT might produce a potentially valuable additional tool for uncovering malingering.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Effects of prolonged lack of amplification on speech-recognition performance: preliminary findings.

The purposes of this investigation were two-fold: 1) to prospectively investigate the effect of prolonged lack of binaural amplification in the unaided ears of adults with bilaterally symmetrical sensorineural hearing impairment (BSSHI) fitted monaurally; and, 2) to prospectively investigate the effects of amplification on speech-recognition performance in the aided ears of monaurally and binaurally fitted subjects. Subjects consisted of 19 monaurally aided adults, 28 binaurally aided adults, and 19 control adults. Both ears of the experimental subjects (binaurally and monaurally aided adults) had BSSHI. The speech measures included the W-22 CID suprathreshold speech-recognition test, nonsense syllable test, and speech-perception-in-noise test. Initial testing was done between 6 and 12 weeks following hearing-aid fitting. Retests were performed approximately 1 year following the initial test. The results revealed that the mean aided minus unaided ear score for the nonsense syllable and W-22 tests increased significantly from the initial test to retest, reflecting a slight improvement in speech performance in the aided ear and a slightly greater decrement in the unaided ear. The findings were interpreted with respect to the theories of auditory deprivation and acclimatization.

Acclimatization↗

PubMed1993

Spectral contrast enhancement of speech in noise for listeners with sensorineural hearing impairment: effects on intelligibility, quality, and response times.

This paper describes a series of experiments evaluating the effects of digital processing of speech in noise so as to enhance spectral contrast, using subjects with cochlear hearing loss. The enhancement was carried out on a frequency scale related to the equivalent rectangular bandwidths (ERBs) of auditory filters in normally hearing subjects. The aim was to enhance major spectral prominences without enhancing fine-grain spectral features that would not be resolved by a normal ear. In experiment 1, the amount of enhancement and the bandwidth (in ERBs) of the enhancement processing were systematically varied. Large amounts of enhancement produced decreases in the intelligibility of speech in noise. Performance for moderate degrees of enhancement was generally similar to that for the control conditions, possibly because subjects did not have sufficient experience with the processed speech. In experiment 2, subjects judged the relative quality and intelligibility of speech in noise processed using a subset of the conditions of experiment 1. Generally, processing with a moderate degree of enhancement was preferred over the control condition, for both quality and intelligibility. Subjects varied in their preferences for high degrees of enhancement. Experiment 3 used a modified processing algorithm, with a moderate degree of spectral enhancement, and examined the effects of combining the enhancement with dynamic range compression. The intelligibility of speech in noise improved with practice, and, after a small amount of practice, scores for the condition combining enhancement with a moderate degree of compression were found to be significantly higher than for the control condition. Experiment 4 used a subset of conditions from experiment 3, but performance was assessed using a sentence verification test that measured both intelligibility and response times. Scores on both measures were improved by spectral enhancement, and improved still more by enhancement combined with compression. The effects were statistically more robust for the response times. When expressed as equivalent changes in speech-to-noise ratio, the improvements were about twice as large for the response times as for the intelligibility scores. The overall effect of spectral enhancement combined with compression was equivalent to an improvement of speech-to-noise ratio by 4.2 dB.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Impaired word recognition in noise by patients with noise-induced cochlear hearing loss: contribution of temporal resolution defect.

Fifteen patients with mild noise-induced cochlear hearing loss reported a selective difficulty in understanding speech in noisy settings. To examine the hypothesis that a temporal resolution defect was responsible for this difficulty, the patients were tested for their recognition of monosyllabic words presented against continuous and interrupted wide-band noise backgrounds, at each of seven signal-to-noise ratios. Their recognition performance was compared with that of normal listeners studied with the same paradigms. By comparison with the controls, the group with cochlear hearing loss showed a significant recognition impairment only for words presented against the interrupted masker. This finding was in keeping with the existence of a temporal resolution defect in cochlear disease, though it need not indicate a stimulus timing defect at the level of individual cochlear neurons.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Nucleus 22-channel cochlear mini-system implantations in Mandarin-speaking patients.

This article evaluates the benefits of the Mini System of the Nucleus 22-Channel Cochlear Implant on the speech perception and auditory functions of Mandarin-speaking patients. Tests adapted specifically for the assessment of a tonal language were administered in the best-aided condition preoperatively to four Mandarin-speakers. These scores were compared postoperatively with implant alone or with lipreading scores to quantify speech perception and auditory improvements resulting from the Nucleus 22 Mini-System cochlear implant. Four postlingually deafened adults underwent cochlear implant surgery using a Nucleus 22-Channel Mini-System Device via an inverted "U" postauricular incision and the posterior tympanotomy approach, without complications. After up to 2 years of rehabilitation, all four patients exhibited continuous improvement in both speech perception and auditory abilities over time. The improvements made by our Mandarin-speaking patients are comparable to studies on Western-language-speaking patients implanted with the same device, indicating that the Nucleus 22 Mini System enables profoundly and totally deaf patients to distinguish between the four separate tones present in Mandarin Chinese.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Cochlear implantation in children younger than 2 years old.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the viability of giving implants to children <2 years old and to assess the development of speech perception. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective study with a follow-up period of 1-5 years. SETTING: New York University Medical Center. PATIENTS: The patients consisted of 11 consecutive profoundly deaf children, aged 14-23 months, who were given the Nucleus cochlear implant. METHODS: Closed- and open-set speech perception were assessed preoperatively and postoperatively using the following measures: Early Speech Perception (ESP) test, the Northwestern University children's perception of speech test (NU-CHIPS), the Glendonald auditory screening procedure (GASP) word and sentence tests, the phonetically balanced kindergarten (PBK) word test, common phrases test, the multisyllabic lexical neighborhood test (MLNT), and the lexical neighborhood test (LNT). RESULTS: Paired t test was used to examine changes in scores from the preoperative test interval to the last available postoperative assessment. Results indicate that all patients had significant improvement from preoperative performance to the last postoperative evaluation and were using oral language as their means of communication. There were no medical or surgical complications. CONCLUSIONS: Children <2 years old receive substantial benefit from a multichannel cochlear implant with no increase in risk when compared with older children.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The influence of the guess factor on the speech reception threshold.

Thirty normal hearing subjects were utilized in an investigation designed to determine the extent to which guessing on the part of the listener may influence the speech reception threshold. Results suggest that the magnitude of the speech reception threshold may be significantly altered as a result of the degree of guessing which occurs during the administration of the test. Clinical implications of this finding are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Dead regions in the cochlea: implications for speech recognition and applicability of articulation index theory.

Dead regions in the cochlea have been suggested to be responsible for failure by hearing aid users to benefit from apparently increased audibility in terms of speech intelligibility. As an alternative to the more cumbersome psychoacoustic tuning curve measurement, threshold-equalizing noise (TEN) has been reported to enable diagnosis of dead regions. The purpose of the present study was first to assess the feasibility of the TEN test protocol, and second, to assess the ability of the procedure to reveal related functional impairment. The latter was done by a test for the recognition of low-pass-filtered speech items. Data were collected from 22 hearing-impaired subjects with moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing losses. The results showed that 11 subjects exhibited abnormal psychoacoustic behaviour in the TEN test, indicative of a possible dead region. Estimates of audibility were used to assess the possible connection between dead-region candidacy and ability to recognize low-pass-filtered speech. Large variability was observed with regard to the ability of audibility to predict recognition scores for both dead-region and no-dead-region subjects. Furthermore, the results indicate that dead-region subjects might be better than no-dead-region subjects at recognizing speech of marginal audibility.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Effects of introducing unprocessed low-frequency information on the reception of envelope-vocoder processed speech.

This study investigated the benefits of adding unprocessed low-frequency information to acoustic simulations of cochlear-implant processing in normal-hearing listeners. Implant processing was simulated using an eight-channel noise-excited envelope vocoder, and low-frequency information was added by replacing the lower frequency channels of the processor with a low-pass-filtered version of the original stimulus. Experiment 1 measured sentence-level speech reception as a function of target-to-masker ratio, with either steady-state speech-shaped noise or single-talker maskers. Experiment 2 measured listeners' ability to identify two vowels presented simultaneously, as a function of the F0 difference between the two vowels. In both experiments low-frequency information was added below either 300 or 600 Hz. The introduction of the additional low-frequency information led to substantial and significant improvements in performance in both experiments, with a greater improvement observed for the higher (600 Hz) than for the lower (300 Hz) cutoff frequency. However, performance never equaled performance in the unprocessed conditions. The results confirm other recent demonstrations that added low-frequency information can provide significant benefits in intelligibility, which may at least in part be attributed to improvements in F0 representation. The findings provide further support for efforts to make use of residual acoustic hearing in cochlear-implant users.

Adult↗