An exploratory investigation of speech recognition thresholds in noise with auralisations of two reverberant rooms
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2021-03-01
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
10
Series
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDIOLOGY
Abstract
Objective: Speech-in-noise tests are widely used in hearing diagnostics but typically without reverberation, although reverberation is an inextricable part of everyday listening conditions. To support the development of more real-life-like test paradigms, the objective of this study was to explore how spatially reproduced reverberation affects speech recognition thresholds in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Design: Thresholds were measured with a Finnish speech-in-noise test without reverberation and with two test conditions with reverberation times of ∼0.9 and 1.8 s. Reverberant conditions were produced with a multichannel auralisation technique not used before in this context. Study sample: Thirty-four normal-hearing and 14 hearing-impaired listeners participated in this study. Five people were tested with and without hearing aids. Results: No significant differences between test conditions were found for the normal-hearing listeners. Results for the hearing-impaired listeners indicated better performance for the 0.9 s reverberation time compared to the reference and the 1.8 s conditions. Benefit from hearing aid use varied between individuals; for one person, an advantage was observed only with reverberation. Conclusions: Auralisations may offer information on speech recognition performance that is not obtained with a test without reverberation. However, more complex stimuli and/or higher signal-to-noise ratios should be used in the future.Description
Keywords
hearing diagnostics, hearing impairment, reverberation, Speech recognition, speech-in-noise test, virtual acoustics
Citation
Kuusinen , A , Saariniemi , E , Sivonen , V , Dietz , A , Aarnisalo , A A & Lokki , T 2021 , ' An exploratory investigation of speech recognition thresholds in noise with auralisations of two reverberant rooms ' , INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDIOLOGY , vol. 60 , no. 3 , pp. 210-219 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2020.1817993
