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Consonant recognition loss in hearing impaired listeners
Sandeep A Phatak1, Yang-Soo Yoon, David M Gooler
1Army Audiology and Speech Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC 20307, USA.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|November 10, 2009
Summary
A new Consonant Loss Profile (CLP) method visually compares hearing impaired (HI) and normal hearing (NH) listeners
Area of Science:
- Audiology
- Speech Perception
- Hearing Science
Background:
- Assessing speech recognition in hearing impaired (HI) individuals requires detailed performance analysis.
- Conventional metrics like DeltaSNR(50) do not fully capture consonant-specific performance variations.
- Understanding consonant intelligibility is crucial for effective hearing aid fitting and auditory rehabilitation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a novel graphical method, the Consonant Loss Profile (CLP), for detailed listener performance comparison.
- To characterize consonant-dependent speech recognition deficits in hearing impaired listeners.
- To highlight the limitations of conventional signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss metrics.
Main Methods:
- Development of the Consonant Loss Profile (CLP) for consonant-by-consonant performance analysis.
- Comparison of HI listener performance against average normal hearing (NH) listener performance.
- Analysis of consonant loss as a function of listener score and its dependence on specific consonants.
Main Results:
- The CLP demonstrates that consonant loss (SNR difference at equal scores) is consonant-dependent and varies with performance level.
- Hearing loss can render certain consonants unintelligible and reduce the noise-robustness of others.
- DeltaSNR(50) is insufficient, showing discrepancies between sentence and nonsense syllable measures; high-frequency loss impacts consonant confusions even at high presentation levels.
Conclusions:
- The Consonant Loss Profile (CLP) offers a more comprehensive understanding of individual hearing loss effects on speech perception.
- CLP reveals nuanced consonant-specific challenges faced by hearing impaired listeners.
- This method can inform more personalized auditory rehabilitation strategies and hearing aid adjustments.
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