Speech intelligibility in simulated acoustic conditions for normal hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

Authors

  • Iris Arweiler Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Ørsted•DTU, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
  • Torben Poulsen Acoustic Technology, Ørsted•DTU, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
  • Torsten Dau Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Ørsted•DTU, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark

Abstract

The possibility to predict speech intelligibility scores for hearing-impaired lis- teners from the audiogram depends on the variability of these scores among listeners. It is not clear how large this variability is when speech intelligibility is assessed in complex listening environments for groups of hearing-impaired listeners with different hearing loss con gurations. Therefore, speech reception thresholds (SRT) were measured in this study for different groups of hearing-impaired listeners in simulated acoustic environments. The variability among hearing-impaired listeners with a mild (group 1) or steeply sloping (group 2) sensorineural hearing loss was small for all configurations whereas hearing-impaired with a moderately sloping (group 3) or at moderate to severe (group 4) sensorineural hearing loss showed considerable variability of the SRT. Spatial separation of the signal and the interferer increased the variability for the listeners from group 3. An average SRT with a small standard deviation could not be obtained for group 3 and 4 and speech intelligibility prediction from the audiogram is therefore not possible for these groups with the necessary accuracy.

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Additional Files

Published

2007-12-15

How to Cite

Arweiler, I., Poulsen, T., & Dau, T. (2007). Speech intelligibility in simulated acoustic conditions for normal hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 1, 389–396. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2007-37

Issue

Vol. 1 (2007): Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing Impaired Listeners

Section

2007/4. Speech perception and processing

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