Predictors of supra-threshold speech-in-noise intelligibility by hearing-impaired listeners

Authors

  • Peter T. Johannesen Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
  • Patricia Pérez-González Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
  • Sridhar Kalluri Starkey Hearing Research Center, Berkeley, CA, USA
  • José L. Blanco Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
  • Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Departamento de Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

Abstract

The aim was to assess the relative importance of cochlear mechanical dysfunction, temporal processing deficits, and age for hearing-impaired listeners to understand supra-threshold speech in noise backgrounds. 68 hearing-aid candidates took part in the study. Intelligibility was assessed for speech-shaped noise (SSN) and reversed two-talker masker (R2TM) backgrounds. Behavioural estimates of cochlear gain loss and residual compression from a previous study were used as indicators of cochlear mechanical dysfunction. Temporal processing abilities were assessed using frequency modulation detection thresholds. Age, audiometric thresholds, and the difference between audiometric thresholds and cochlear gain loss were also included in the analyses. Stepwise multiple linear regression models of intelligibility were designed to assess the relative importance of the various factors for speech intelligibility. Results showed that (1) cochlear gain loss was unrelated to intelligibility; (2) residual cochlear compression was related to intelligibility in SSN but not in R2TM backgrounds; (3) temporal processing was strongly related to intelligibility in R2TM backgrounds and much less so in SSN backgrounds; (4) age per se hindered intelligibility. We conclude that all factors affect speech intelligibility but their relative importance varies across masker backgrounds.

References

ANSI (1997). S3.5 Methods for Calculation of the Speech Intelligibility Index (American National Standards Institute, New York).

Byrne D. and Dillon H. (1986). “The National Acoustic Laboratories’ (NAL) new procedure for selecting the gain and frequency response of a hearing aid,” Ear Hearing, 7, 257-265.

CHABA (1988). “Speech understanding and aging. Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging. Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics, and Biomechanics, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 83, 859-895.

Eisenberg L.S., Dirks D.D., Takayanagi S., and Martinez A.S. (1998). “Subjective judgements of clarity and intelligibility for filtered stimuli with equivalent speech intelligibility index predictions,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res., 41, 327-339.

Festen J.M. and Plomp, R. (1990). “Effects of fluctuating noise and interfering speech on the speech-reception threshold for impaired and normal hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 88, 1725-1736.

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.

Gordon-Salant, S., Frisina R.D., Popper A.N., and Fay R.R. (2010). The Aging Auditory System (Springer, New York).

Gregan M.J., Nelson P.B., and Oxenham A.J. (2013). “Behavioral measures of cochlear compression and temporal resolution as predictors of speech masking release in hearing-impaired listeners,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 134, 2895-2912.

Johannesen P.T., Perez-Gonzalez P., and Lopez-Poveda E.A. (2014). “Across-frequency behavioral estimates of the contribution of inner and outer hair cell dysfunction to individualized audiometric loss,” Front. Neurosci., 8, 214.

Kujawa S.G. and Liberman M.C. (2009). “Adding insult to injury: cochlear nerve degeneration after "temporary" noise-induced hearing loss,” J. Neurosci., 29, 14077-14085.

Levitt H. (1971). “Transformed up-down methods in psychoacoustics,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 49, 467-477.

Lopez-Poveda, E.A., Plack, C.J., and Meddis, R. (2003). “Cochlear nonlinearity between 500 and 8000 Hz in listeners with normal hearing,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 113, 951-960.

Lopez-Poveda, E.A. and Alves-Pinto A. (2008). “A variant temporal-masking-curve method for inferring peripheral auditory compression,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 123, 1544-1554.

Lopez-Poveda E.A. and Johannesen, P.T. (2012). “Behavioral estimates of the contribution of inner and outer hair cell dysfunction to individualized audiometric loss,” J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol., 13, 485-504.

Lopez-Poveda, E.A. and Barrios, P. (2013). “Perception of stochastically under-sampled sound waveforms: a model of auditory deafferentation,” Front. Neurosci., 7, 124.

Lopez-Poveda, E.A. (2014). “Why do I hear but not understand? Stochastic undersampling as a model of degraded neural encoding of speech,” Front. Neurosci., 8, 348.

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. USA, 103, 18866-18869.

Makary C.A., Shin, J., Kujawa, S.G., Liberman, M.C., and Merchant, S.N. (2011). “Age-related primary cochlear neuronal degeneration in human temporal bones,” J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol., 12, 711-717.

Moore, B.C.J. and Glasberg, B.R. (1997). “A model of loudness perception applied to cochlear hearing loss,” Auditory Neuroscience, 3, 289-311.

Moore, B.C.J. (2007). Cochlear Hearing Loss (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Chichester).

Nilsson M., Soli S.D., and Sullivan J.A. (1994). “Development of the Hearing in Noise Test for the measurement of speech reception thresholds in quiet and in noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 95, 1085-1099.

Peters, R.W., Moore, B.C.J., and Baer, T. (1998). “Speech reception thresholds in noise with and without spectral and temporal dips for hearing-impaired and normally hearing people,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 103, 577-587.

Pichora-Fuller, M.K., Schneider, B.A., MacDonald, E., Pass, H.E., and Brown, S. (2007). “Temporal jitter disrupts speech intelligibility: a simulation of auditory aging,” Hear. Res., 223, 114-121.

Plack, C.J., Drga, V., and Lopez-Poveda, E.A. (2004). “Inferred basilar-membrane response functions for listeners with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 115, 1684-1695.

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.

Summers, V., Makashay, M.J., Theodoroff, S.M., and Leek, M.R. (2013). “Supra-threshold auditory processing and speech perception in noise: Hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners,” J. Am. Acad. Audiol., 24, 274-292.

Downloads

Published

2015-12-15

How to Cite

Johannesen, P. T., Pérez-González, P., Kalluri, S., Blanco, J. L., & Lopez-Poveda, E. A. (2015). Predictors of supra-threshold speech-in-noise intelligibility by hearing-impaired listeners. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 5, 125–136. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2015-15

Issue

Vol. 5 (2015): Individual Hearing Loss - Characterization, modelling, compensation strategies

Section

2015/3. Modelling individual hearing impairment

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright* and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

*From the 2017 issue onward. The Danavox Jubilee Foundation owns the copyright of all articles published in the 1969-2015 issues. However, authors are still allowed to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.