Limited resolution of spectral contrast and hearing loss for speech in noise

This paper examines the relations among the spectral contrast needed for speech intelligibility, hearing loss for speech in noise, and auditory filter bandwidth. Fifteen hearing-impaired listeners with relatively flat, mild-to-moderate sensorineural losses and eight normal-hearing listeners participated in the study. The spectral contrast needed for speech intelligibility was determined by reducing spectral contrast in the speech signal and measuring the reduction in contrast beyond which the speech-reception threshold (SRT) for sentences in noise increases. Reduction of spectral contrast was accomplished by smearing the envelope of the squared short-time fast Fourier transform by a convolution with a Gaussian-shaped filter, and overlapping additions to reconstruct a continuous signal. Auditory filter bandwidth was determined by estimating auditory filter shapes at center frequencies of 0.8, 1.6, and 3.2 kHz, using a notched-noise masking paradigm. The results show that limited resolution of spectral contrast is only loosely associated with hearing loss for speech in noise. Moreover, the correlations between the SRT for unsmeared speech and the auditory filter bandwidth at various frequencies were weak.