Beyond the audiogram: Influence of supra-threshold deficits associated with hearing loss and age on speech intelligibility
Abstract
Sensorineural hearing loss and greater age are associated with poor speech intelligibility, especially in the presence of background sounds. The extent to which this is due to reduced audibility or to supra-threshold deficits is still debated. The influence of supra-threshold deficits on intelligibility was investigated for normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with high-frequency losses by limiting the effect of audibility. The HI listeners were generally older than the NH listeners. Speech identification was measured using nonsense speech signals filtered into low- and mid-frequency regions, where pure-tone sensitivity was near normal for both groups. The older HI listeners showed mild to severe intelligibility deficits for speech presented in quiet and in various backgrounds (noise or speech). Overall, these results suggest that speech intelligibility can be strongly influenced by supra-threshold auditory deficits.
References
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Bernstein, J.G. and Grant, K. W. (2009). “Auditory and auditory-visual intelligibility of speech in fluctuating maskers for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 3358-3372.
Christiansen, C. and Dau, T. (2012). “Relationship between masking release in fluctuating maskers and speech reception thresholds in stationary noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 132, 1655-1666.
Desloge, J.G., Reed, C.M., Braida, L.D., Perez, Z.D., and Delhorne, L.A. (2010). “Speech reception by listeners with real and simulated hearing impairment: effects of continuous and interrupted noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 128, 342-359.
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Dreschler, W.A. and Plomp, R. (1985). “Relations between psychophysical data and speech perception for hearing-impaired subjects II,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 78, 1261-1270.
Dubno, J.R., Horwitz, A.R., and Ahlstrom, J.B. (2002). “Benefit of modulated maskers for speech recognition by younger and older adults with normal hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 111, 2897-2907.
Füllgrabe, C. (2013). “Age-dependent changes in temporal-fine-structure processing in the absence of peripheral hearing loss,” Am. J. Audiol., 22, 313-315.
Füllgrabe, C., Moore, B.C.J., and Stone, M.A. (2015). “Age-group differences in speech identification despite matched audiometrically normal hearing: contributions from auditory temporal processing and cognition,” Front. Aging Neurosci., 6, 347.
George, E.L., Festen, J.M., and Houtgast, T. (2006). “Factors affecting masking release for speech in modulated noise for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 120, 2295-2311.
Glasberg, B.R. and Moore, B.C. (1989). “Psychoacoustic abilities of subjects with unilateral and bilateral cochlear hearing impairments and their relationship to the ability to understand speech,” Scand. Audiol. Suppl., 32, 1-25.
Glasberg, B.R. and Moore, B.C.J. (1990). “Derivation of auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data,” Hear. Res., 47, 103-138.
Grose, J.H., Mamo, S.K., and Hall, J.W. (2009). “Age effects in temporal envelope processing: speech unmasking and auditory steady state responses,” Ear Hearing, 30, 568-575.
Harris, K.C., Mills, J.H., He, N.-J., and Dubno, J.R. (2008). “Age-related differences in sensitivity to small changes in frequency assessed with cortical evoked potentials,” Hear. Res., 243, 47-56.
He, N.J., Mills, J.H., and Dubno, J.R. (2007). “Frequency modulation detection: effects of age, psychophysical method, and modulation waveform,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 122, 467-477.
He, N.J., Mills, J.H., Ahlstrom, J.B., and Dubno, J.R. (2008). “Age-related differences in the temporal modulation transfer function with pure-tone carriers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 124, 3841-3849.
Hopkins, K. and Moore, B.C.J. (2011). “The effects of age and cochlear
hearing loss on temporal fine structure sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and speech reception in noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 130, 334-349.
Horwitz, A.R., Dubno, J.R., and Ahlstrom, J.B. (2002). “Recognition of low-pass-filtered consonants in noise with normal and impaired high-frequency hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 111, 409-416.
Humes, L.E., Dirks, D.D., Bell, T.S., and Kincaid, G.E. (1987). “Recognition of nonsense syllables by hearing-impaired listeners and by noise-masked normal hearers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 81, 765-773.
Humes, L.E. (2002). “Factors underlying the speech-recognition performance of elderly hearing-aid wearers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 112, 1112-1132.
Lee, L.W. and Humes, L. E. (1993). “Evaluating a speech-reception threshold model for hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 93, 2879-2885.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., Gnansia, D., and Lorenzi, C. (2012a). “Effect of spectral smearing on temporal and spectral masking release in low- and mid-frequency regions,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 4114-4123.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012b). “Temporal and spectral masking release in low- and mid-frequency regions for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 1502-1514.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012c). “Abnormal speech processing in frequency regions where absolute thresholds are normal for listeners with high-frequency hearing loss,” Hear. Res., 294, 95-103.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012d). “A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers,” In T. Dau, M.L.
Jepsen, J.-C. Cristensen-Dalsgaard, and T. Poulsen (Eds.), Proc. ISAAR 2011, Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders, Danavox Jubilee Foundation, Denmark, pp. 159-166.
Léger, A.C., Ives, D.T., and Lorenzi, C. (2014). “Abnormal intelligibility of speech in competing speech and in noise in a frequency region where audiometric thresholds are near-normal for hearing-impaired listeners,” Hear. Res., 316, 102-109.
Lorenzi, C., Gilbert, G., Carn, H., Garnier, S., and Moore, B.C.J. (2006). “Speech perception problems of the hearing impaired reflect inability to use temporal fine structure,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 103, 18866-18869.
Lorenzi, C., Debruille, L., Garnier, S., Fleuriot, P., and Moore, B.C.J. (2009). “Abnormal processing of temporal fine structure in speech for frequencies where absolute thresholds are normal (L),” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 27-30.
Moore, B.C.J. (2007). Cochlear Hearing Loss: Physiological, Psychological and Technical Issues, Wiley-Interscience, Chichester, England, 332 pages.
Moore, B.C.J. (2014). Auditory Processing of Temporal Fine Structure: Effects of Age and Hearing Loss, World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ, 196 pages.
Neher, T., Lunner, T., Hopkins, K., and Moore, B.C.J. (2012). “Binaural temporal fine structure sensitivity, cognitive function, and spatial speech recognition of hearing-impaired listeners (L),” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 2561-2564.
Phatak, S.A. and Grant, K.W. (2012). “Phoneme recognition in modulated maskers by normal-hearing and aided hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 132, 1646-1654.
Plomp, R. (1978). “Auditory handicap of hearing impairment and the limited benefit of hearing aids,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 63, 533-549.
Plomp, R. (1986). “A signal-to-noise ratio model for the speech-reception threshold of the hearing impaired,” J. Speech Hear. Res., 29, 146-154.
Rhebergen, K.S. and Versfeld, N.J. (2005). “A Speech Intelligibility Index-based approach to predict the speech reception threshold for sentences in fluctuating noise for normal-hearing listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 117, 2181-2192.
Rhebergen, K.S., Versfeld, N.J., and Dreschler, W.A. (2006). “Extended speech intelligibility index for the prediction of the speech reception threshold in fluctuating noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 120, 3988-3997.
Rhebergen, K.S., Lyzenga, J., Dreschler, W.A., and Festen, J.M. (2010a). “Modeling speech intelligibility in quiet and noise in listeners with normal and impaired hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127, 1570-1583.
Rhebergen, K.S., Versfeld, N.J., de Laat, J.A.P.M., and Dreschler, W.A. (2010b). “Modelling the speech reception threshold in non-stationary noise in hearing-impaired listeners as a function of level,” Int. J. Audiol., 49, 856-865.
Sheft, S., Shafiro, V., Lorenzi, C., McMullen, R., and Farrell, C. (2012). “Effects of age and hearing loss on the relationship between discrimination of stochastic frequency modulation and speech perception,” Ear Hearing, 33, 709-720.
Stone, M.A., Füllgrabe, C., Mackinnon, R.C., and Moore, B.C.J. (2011). “The importance for speech intelligibility of random fluctuations in ‘steady’ background noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 130, 2874-2881.
Strelcyk, O. and Dau, T. (2009). “Relations between frequency selectivity, temporal fine-structure processing, and speech reception in impaired hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 3328-3345.
Studebaker, G.A. (1985). “A ‘rationalized’ arcsine transform,” J. Speech Hear. Res., 28, 455-462.
Summers, V., Makashay, M.J., Theodoroff, S.M., and Leek, M.R. (2013). “Suprathreshold auditory processing and speech perception in noise: hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners,” J. Am. Acad. Audiol., 24, 274-292.
Vongpaisal, T. and Pichora-Fuller, M.K. (2007). “Effect of age on F0 difference limen and concurrent vowel identification,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res., 50, 1139-1156.
Zurek, P.M. and Delhorne, L.A. (1987). “Consonant reception in noise by listeners with mild and moderate sensorineural hearing impairment,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 82, 1548-1559.
Bernstein, J.G. and Grant, K. W. (2009). “Auditory and auditory-visual intelligibility of speech in fluctuating maskers for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 3358-3372.
Christiansen, C. and Dau, T. (2012). “Relationship between masking release in fluctuating maskers and speech reception thresholds in stationary noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 132, 1655-1666.
Desloge, J.G., Reed, C.M., Braida, L.D., Perez, Z.D., and Delhorne, L.A. (2010). “Speech reception by listeners with real and simulated hearing impairment: effects of continuous and interrupted noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 128, 342-359.
Dreschler, W.A. and Plomp, R. (1980). “Relation between psychophysical data and speech perception for hearing-impaired subjects I,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 68, 1608-1615.
Dreschler, W.A. and Plomp, R. (1985). “Relations between psychophysical data and speech perception for hearing-impaired subjects II,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 78, 1261-1270.
Dubno, J.R., Horwitz, A.R., and Ahlstrom, J.B. (2002). “Benefit of modulated maskers for speech recognition by younger and older adults with normal hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 111, 2897-2907.
Füllgrabe, C. (2013). “Age-dependent changes in temporal-fine-structure processing in the absence of peripheral hearing loss,” Am. J. Audiol., 22, 313-315.
Füllgrabe, C., Moore, B.C.J., and Stone, M.A. (2015). “Age-group differences in speech identification despite matched audiometrically normal hearing: contributions from auditory temporal processing and cognition,” Front. Aging Neurosci., 6, 347.
George, E.L., Festen, J.M., and Houtgast, T. (2006). “Factors affecting masking release for speech in modulated noise for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 120, 2295-2311.
Glasberg, B.R. and Moore, B.C. (1989). “Psychoacoustic abilities of subjects with unilateral and bilateral cochlear hearing impairments and their relationship to the ability to understand speech,” Scand. Audiol. Suppl., 32, 1-25.
Glasberg, B.R. and Moore, B.C.J. (1990). “Derivation of auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data,” Hear. Res., 47, 103-138.
Grose, J.H., Mamo, S.K., and Hall, J.W. (2009). “Age effects in temporal envelope processing: speech unmasking and auditory steady state responses,” Ear Hearing, 30, 568-575.
Harris, K.C., Mills, J.H., He, N.-J., and Dubno, J.R. (2008). “Age-related differences in sensitivity to small changes in frequency assessed with cortical evoked potentials,” Hear. Res., 243, 47-56.
He, N.J., Mills, J.H., and Dubno, J.R. (2007). “Frequency modulation detection: effects of age, psychophysical method, and modulation waveform,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 122, 467-477.
He, N.J., Mills, J.H., Ahlstrom, J.B., and Dubno, J.R. (2008). “Age-related differences in the temporal modulation transfer function with pure-tone carriers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 124, 3841-3849.
Hopkins, K. and Moore, B.C.J. (2011). “The effects of age and cochlear
hearing loss on temporal fine structure sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and speech reception in noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 130, 334-349.
Horwitz, A.R., Dubno, J.R., and Ahlstrom, J.B. (2002). “Recognition of low-pass-filtered consonants in noise with normal and impaired high-frequency hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 111, 409-416.
Humes, L.E., Dirks, D.D., Bell, T.S., and Kincaid, G.E. (1987). “Recognition of nonsense syllables by hearing-impaired listeners and by noise-masked normal hearers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 81, 765-773.
Humes, L.E. (2002). “Factors underlying the speech-recognition performance of elderly hearing-aid wearers,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 112, 1112-1132.
Lee, L.W. and Humes, L. E. (1993). “Evaluating a speech-reception threshold model for hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 93, 2879-2885.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., Gnansia, D., and Lorenzi, C. (2012a). “Effect of spectral smearing on temporal and spectral masking release in low- and mid-frequency regions,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 4114-4123.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012b). “Temporal and spectral masking release in low- and mid-frequency regions for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 1502-1514.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012c). “Abnormal speech processing in frequency regions where absolute thresholds are normal for listeners with high-frequency hearing loss,” Hear. Res., 294, 95-103.
Léger, A.C., Moore, B.C.J., and Lorenzi, C. (2012d). “A review of speech masking release for hearing-impaired listeners with near-normal perception of speech in unmodulated noise maskers,” In T. Dau, M.L.
Jepsen, J.-C. Cristensen-Dalsgaard, and T. Poulsen (Eds.), Proc. ISAAR 2011, Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders, Danavox Jubilee Foundation, Denmark, pp. 159-166.
Léger, A.C., Ives, D.T., and Lorenzi, C. (2014). “Abnormal intelligibility of speech in competing speech and in noise in a frequency region where audiometric thresholds are near-normal for hearing-impaired listeners,” Hear. Res., 316, 102-109.
Lorenzi, C., Gilbert, G., Carn, H., Garnier, S., and Moore, B.C.J. (2006). “Speech perception problems of the hearing impaired reflect inability to use temporal fine structure,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 103, 18866-18869.
Lorenzi, C., Debruille, L., Garnier, S., Fleuriot, P., and Moore, B.C.J. (2009). “Abnormal processing of temporal fine structure in speech for frequencies where absolute thresholds are normal (L),” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 27-30.
Moore, B.C.J. (2007). Cochlear Hearing Loss: Physiological, Psychological and Technical Issues, Wiley-Interscience, Chichester, England, 332 pages.
Moore, B.C.J. (2014). Auditory Processing of Temporal Fine Structure: Effects of Age and Hearing Loss, World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ, 196 pages.
Neher, T., Lunner, T., Hopkins, K., and Moore, B.C.J. (2012). “Binaural temporal fine structure sensitivity, cognitive function, and spatial speech recognition of hearing-impaired listeners (L),” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 131, 2561-2564.
Phatak, S.A. and Grant, K.W. (2012). “Phoneme recognition in modulated maskers by normal-hearing and aided hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 132, 1646-1654.
Plomp, R. (1978). “Auditory handicap of hearing impairment and the limited benefit of hearing aids,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 63, 533-549.
Plomp, R. (1986). “A signal-to-noise ratio model for the speech-reception threshold of the hearing impaired,” J. Speech Hear. Res., 29, 146-154.
Rhebergen, K.S. and Versfeld, N.J. (2005). “A Speech Intelligibility Index-based approach to predict the speech reception threshold for sentences in fluctuating noise for normal-hearing listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 117, 2181-2192.
Rhebergen, K.S., Versfeld, N.J., and Dreschler, W.A. (2006). “Extended speech intelligibility index for the prediction of the speech reception threshold in fluctuating noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 120, 3988-3997.
Rhebergen, K.S., Lyzenga, J., Dreschler, W.A., and Festen, J.M. (2010a). “Modeling speech intelligibility in quiet and noise in listeners with normal and impaired hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127, 1570-1583.
Rhebergen, K.S., Versfeld, N.J., de Laat, J.A.P.M., and Dreschler, W.A. (2010b). “Modelling the speech reception threshold in non-stationary noise in hearing-impaired listeners as a function of level,” Int. J. Audiol., 49, 856-865.
Sheft, S., Shafiro, V., Lorenzi, C., McMullen, R., and Farrell, C. (2012). “Effects of age and hearing loss on the relationship between discrimination of stochastic frequency modulation and speech perception,” Ear Hearing, 33, 709-720.
Stone, M.A., Füllgrabe, C., Mackinnon, R.C., and Moore, B.C.J. (2011). “The importance for speech intelligibility of random fluctuations in ‘steady’ background noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 130, 2874-2881.
Strelcyk, O. and Dau, T. (2009). “Relations between frequency selectivity, temporal fine-structure processing, and speech reception in impaired hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 3328-3345.
Studebaker, G.A. (1985). “A ‘rationalized’ arcsine transform,” J. Speech Hear. Res., 28, 455-462.
Summers, V., Makashay, M.J., Theodoroff, S.M., and Leek, M.R. (2013). “Suprathreshold auditory processing and speech perception in noise: hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners,” J. Am. Acad. Audiol., 24, 274-292.
Vongpaisal, T. and Pichora-Fuller, M.K. (2007). “Effect of age on F0 difference limen and concurrent vowel identification,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res., 50, 1139-1156.
Zurek, P.M. and Delhorne, L.A. (1987). “Consonant reception in noise by listeners with mild and moderate sensorineural hearing impairment,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 82, 1548-1559.
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2015-12-15
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Léger, A. C., Lorenzi, C., & Moore, B. C. J. (2015). Beyond the audiogram: Influence of supra-threshold deficits associated with hearing loss and age on speech intelligibility. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 5, 11–22. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2015-02
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2015/1. Characterizing individual differences in hearing loss
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