Influence of memory effects in speech intelligibility tasks

Authors

  • Stefanie Keller BAI, Bio-inspired information processing, IMETUM, Technische Universita ̈t Mu ̈nchen, Germany
  • Christian Wirtz MED-EL Deutschland GmbH, Germany
  • Hanna Beike Hochschule fu ̈r angewandte Wissenschaften, FH Mu ̈nchen, Germany
  • Werner Hemmert BAI, Bio-inspired information processing, IMETUM, Technische Universita ̈t Mu ̈nchen, Germany

Abstract

Testing speech reception thresholds of hearing-impaired patients is a common task in clinical routine and research. Tests consist of grammatically correct sentences containing different grammatical classes. It is expected that due to primacy and recency memory effects error rates of the first and last word are minimal. In addition, from a linguistic point of view, not only the position of a word but also its grammatical class causes different cognitive effort. This study analyses the effect of different conditions on the comprehended words belonging to different grammatical classes. So far, nine normal-hearing subjects were measured via headphones with a German speech intelligibility test with different kinds of noise and different interaural time differences. The results do not only show the expected memory effects for the noun at the first and last position of the sentences. Also significant differences for the comprehension of sentence-centered numerals were found in comparison to neighboring positions. This is impressive because in the middle, normally the attention of a listener is minimal, therefore one would expect a small recognition rate. In summary, we conclude that careful analysis of speech- reception tests also provides information on more cognitive aspects involved in speech understanding like memory capacity.

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Additional Files

Published

2013-12-15

How to Cite

Keller, S., Wirtz, C., Beike, H., & Hemmert, W. (2013). Influence of memory effects in speech intelligibility tasks. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 4, 413–420. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2013-47

Issue

Vol. 4 (2013): Auditory Plasticity - Listening with the Brain

Section

2013/8. Factors influencing speech intelligibility

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