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fMRI Mapping of Brain Activity Associated with the Vocal Production of Consonant and Dissonant Intervals
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Within-consonant perceptual differences in the hearing impaired ear
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. atrevin2@illinois.edu
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|July 19, 2013
Summary
Sensorineural hearing loss affects consonant recognition, with individual speech token variations impacting perception in noise. Analyzing specific tokens, not averages, reveals more systematic hearing impairment patterns.
Area of Science:
- Audiology
- Speech Science
- Hearing Impairment Research
Background:
- Sensorineural hearing loss (HI) significantly impacts speech perception, particularly in noisy environments.
- Understanding consonant recognition challenges is crucial for effective hearing aid fitting and speech therapy.
- Variability in speech production can influence how individuals with hearing loss perceive sounds.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate consonant recognition in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss under various noise conditions.
- To investigate the impact of talker variability on consonant perception for hearing-impaired listeners.
- To determine if analyzing individual speech tokens offers a more systematic characterization of hearing impairment.
Main Methods:
- Assessed consonant recognition for 14 consonants (/p, t, k, f, s, ∫, b, d, g, v, z, 3, m, n/) paired with /a/ in 17 ears with sensorineural hearing loss.
- Tested recognition under four speech-weighted noise conditions: quiet, 0 dB, 6 dB, and 12 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
- Utilized 28 consonant-vowel test tokens, with one male and one female talker for each consonant, and analyzed responses on an individual token basis.
Main Results:
- Significant systematic differences were observed in consonant recognition based on talker, affecting over 60% of consonants and all hearing-impaired (HI) ears.
- Analyzing responses per token revealed that errors were often limited to a small subset of tokens with fewer than three average confusions.
- Averaging responses across different tokens of the same consonant obscured systematic patterns and increased perceived response entropy for HI listeners.
Conclusions:
- Talker variability in speech tokens significantly influences consonant recognition in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss.
- Examining individual speech tokens, rather than averaged responses, provides a more precise characterization of hearing impairment and speech perception patterns.
- This token-specific analysis offers valuable insights into the complex perception of speech in noise for hearing-impaired listeners.
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