The filtered words test and the influence of lexicality

In the present study, the authors aimed to investigate the language confounds of filtered words tests by examining the repetition of real words versus nonsense words as a function of level of filtering.

Fifty-five young, native-English-speaking women with normal hearing were required to repeat 80 real-word and 80 nonsense-word monosyllables that were matched for phonemic content and low-pass filtered. Thirty participants were tested using a harsher filter range of 2000 to 500 Hz, and 25 participants were tested using a milder filter range of 3000 to 1500 Hz.

Paired-sample t tests compared accuracy (percentage of phonemes correct) for word and nonsense-word stimuli at each filter level. At filter levels between 3000 and 1750 Hz, performance for word stimuli was significantly better than for nonsense-word stimuli. Conversely, at filter levels between 500 and 1250 Hz, performance was significantly better for nonsense words.

The linguistic content of real-word stimuli benefits performance on low-pass filtered speech tests at filter levels above 1500 Hz. Caution must be taken when using real-word stimuli in low-pass filtered speech tests as part of an auditory processing diagnostic test battery, because language ability will impact on performance.