Benefits of linear amplification and multichannel compression for speech comprehension in backgrounds with spectral...

People with cochlear hearing loss have markedly higher speech-receptions thresholds (SRTs) than normal for speech presented in background sounds with spectral and/or temporal dips. This article examines the extent to which SRTs can be improved by linear amplification with appropriate frequency-response shaping, and by fast-acting wide-dynamic-range compression amplification with one, two, four, or eight channels. Eighteen elderly subjects with moderate to severe hearing loss were tested. SRTs for sentences were measured for four background sounds, presented at a nominal level (prior to amplification) of 65 dB SPL: (1) A single female talker, digitally filtered so that the long-term average spectrum matched that of the target speech; (2) a noise with the same average spectrum as the target speech, but with the temporal envelope of the single talker; (3) a noise with the same overall spectral shape as the target speech, but filtered so as to have 4 equivalent-rectangular-bandwidth (ERB) wide spectral notches at several frequencies; (4) a noise with both spectral and temporal dips obtained by applying the temporal envelope of a single talker to speech-shaped noise [as in (2)] and then filtering that noise [as in (3)]. Mean SRTs were 5-6 dB lower (better) in all of the conditions with amplification than for unaided listening. SRTs were significantly lower for the systems with one-, four-, and eight-channel compression than for linear amplification, although the benefit, averaged across subjects, was typically only 0.5 to 0.9 dB. The lowest mean SRT (-9.9 dB, expressed as a speech-to-background ratio) was obtained for noise (4) and the system with eight-channel compression. This is about 6 dB worse than for elderly subjects with near-normal hearing, when tested without amplification. It is concluded that amplification, and especially fast-acting compression amplification, can improve the ability to understand speech in background sounds with spectral and temporal dips, but it does not restore performance to normal.