Thirty-two adults with sensorineural hearing loss participated in a short-term auditory training program. The listeners were assigned to one of four matched groups which were equivalent in pure-tone sensitivity, speech-reception threshold, PB discrimination in quiet and in noise, intelligence, age, education, duration of loss, sex, and hearing-aid use. Each group responded during training to a different combination of listening condition (S/N varied or S/N-constant) and speech material (closed-set or open-set response formats).
Statistically significant increase in auditory discrimination was shown on the W-22 and Rhyme tests, while the increase revealed by the Semi-Diagnostic test was not significant. Results indicated that the two listening conditions were equally effective. Similarly, the two types of training material brought about equivalent increases in overall speech discrimination.
Trends suggested that open-set and closed-set training each had most effect on the respective type of speech discrimination. In addition, improvement in auditory discrimination was associated with those individuals who were oldest, with those who had highest intelligence, and with those who responded to training material at the most intense presentation level. Finally, listeners who reported the most hearing handicap also tended to show the greatest loss in speech reception and in speech discrimination in noise.
Consonant differentiation by speechreading was determined for full-face and lips-only exposures utilizing two forms of a closed-set response test. Thirty-two female college students viewed a videotaped recording of a male talker under the two exposure conditions. Consonant discrimination was more accurate when subjects viewed the talker’s entire face than when they viewed only his lips. The two test forms were not equivalent in visual intelligibility and initial consonants were more accurately discriminated visually than final consonants. These factors should be considered in research or diagnostic use of CVC monosyllables in the measurement of visual consonant discrimination.
An experiment was conducted with 34 normal-hearing listeners to determine the effects of distortion (generated by a single hearing aid) on consonant identification in noise. Five experimental conditions were employed in which measured harmonic distortion ranged from approximately 1% (high fidelity) to 35%. Each listening condition involved playback of recorded test material at a constant sensation level. Results showed that average consonant identification scores, relative to the high-fidelity condition, decreased 15–29% as a function of increased distortion. Initial consonants were discriminated best across all distortion conditions, and progressive increases in distortion tended to most affect final consonants. The data also suggested possible talker/hearing aid interactions. Reduced high-frequency response and altered speech-to-noise ratio, together with harmonic distortion, were postulated as mutually inclusive causes of the observed decrements in consonant differentiation.
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