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Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea
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Auditory and auditory-visual frequency-band importance functions for consonant recognition.
Joshua G W Bernstein1, Jonathan H Venezia2, Ken W Grant1
1National Military Audiology and Speech Pathology Center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 4954 North Palmer Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20889, USA.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|June 4, 2020
Summary
Visual cues increase the importance of low-frequency sounds for speech intelligibility in auditory-visual (AV) conditions. This contrasts with auditory-only (AO) settings, suggesting different frequency focus for clear communication.
Area of Science:
- Auditory perception and speech processing
- Hearing science and audiology
Background:
- Auditory-only (AO) speech intelligibility relies on specific frequency regions.
- Face-to-face communication involves both auditory and visual cues (auditory-visual, AV).
Purpose of the Study:
- To test if lower frequency regions gain importance in AV speech intelligibility compared to AO conditions.
- To investigate the role of visual information redundancy with high-frequency auditory cues.
Main Methods:
- Measured frequency band-importance functions for consonants in hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners.
- Speech was filtered into four octave-separated 1/3-octave bands.
- Logistic regression analyses were used to estimate band importance under AO and AV conditions.
Main Results:
- For both listener groups, low-frequency bands showed increased relative importance under AV conditions.
- Results were consistent across three different logistic-regression models, indicating no significant cross-band interactions.
- Findings align with previous studies on isolated speech bands.
Conclusions:
- Visual information shifts the relative importance of frequency bands for speech intelligibility.
- Accurate prediction of AV speech intelligibility may necessitate distinct frequency-importance functions compared to AO conditions.
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