Document Detail


Effect of spatial separation, extended bandwidth, and compression speed on intelligibility in a competing-speech task.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  20649230     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
The benefit for speech intelligibility of extending the bandwidth of hearing aids was assessed when the target speech (sentences) and background (two talkers) were co-located or spatially separated. Also, the relative benefits of slow and fast compression were assessed. Sixteen hearing-impaired (HI) subjects with mild-to-moderate high-frequency hearing loss and eight normal-hearing (NH) subjects were tested. The target and interfering sounds were recorded using a KEMAR manikin and were located at +/-60 degrees azimuth, either co-located or spatially separated. Simulated binaural hearing-aid processing using five-channel slow or fast compression was performed offline, with gains set individually for each HI subject. Upper cutoff frequencies were 5, 7.5, or 10 kHz. Processed stimuli were presented via headphones. For both NH (unaided) and HI subjects, there was no significant effect of cutoff frequency for the co-located condition, but a small but significant benefit from increasing the cutoff frequency from 5 to 7.5 kHz for the spatially separated condition. For the HI subjects, slow compression gave slightly but significantly higher scores than fast compression for the spatially separated but not for the co-located condition. There were marked individual differences both in the benefit from extended bandwidth and in the relative benefit of slow and fast compression.
Authors:
Brian C J Moore; Christian Füllgrabe; Michael A Stone
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America     Volume:  128     ISSN:  1520-8524     ISO Abbreviation:  J. Acoust. Soc. Am.     Publication Date:  2010 Jul 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-07-23     Completed Date:  2010-11-02     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7503051     Medline TA:  J Acoust Soc Am     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  360-71     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, England. bcjm@cam.ac.uk
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Acoustic Stimulation
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Audiometry
Auditory Threshold
Case-Control Studies
Cues*
Female
Hearing Aids*
Hearing Disorders / psychology,  therapy*
Hearing Impaired Persons / psychology,  rehabilitation*
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Noise / adverse effects*
Perceptual Masking*
Rehabilitation of Hearing Impaired* / psychology
Signal Detection, Psychological
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Sound Spectrography
Speech Intelligibility*
Grant Support
ID/Acronym/Agency:
G0701870//Medical Research Council

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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