Effect of relative and overall amplitude on perception of voiceless stop consonants by listeners with normal and impaired hearing

Abstract

Previous studies of the /p/-/t/ contrast for normal-hearing listeners have shown that both manipulation of the amplitude of the burst relative to the vowel in the F4-F5 frequency region and overall presentation level can influence the perception of place of articulation [R. N. Ohde and K. N. Stevens, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, 706-714 (1983); Gravel and Ohde, Asha 25, 101 (1983)], such that greater burst amplitude in the high frequencies and higher presentation levels result in more alveolar responses. The influence of relative amplitude and presentation level was tested for both normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners in the present study. Synthetic CV stimuli were used, and the amplitude of the burst relative to vowel-onset amplitude in the F4-F5 frequency region was manipulated across a 20-dB range. In addition, overall presentation level was varied across a 45-dB range. The findings revealed that the hearing-impaired listeners selected more alveolar responses than listeners with normal hearing when tested at equivalent SPLs. A group of five normal-hearing listeners were then presented the synthetic stimuli in a background of broadband noise at a level that produced thresholds at 4 kHz equivalent to the thresholds of five hearing-impaired listeners. Results from the noise-masked normal-hearing listeners did not consistently show more alveolar responses as presentation level of the stimuli was increased, thus failing to mimic the responses from the hearing-impaired listeners in quiet.

Acclimatization in wide dynamic range multichannel compression and linear amplification hearing aids

“…Hearing-impaired and normal-hearing adults show differential use of speech recognition cues [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. In general, hearing-impaired listeners relied less on high-frequency cues preferred by normal-hearing listeners, when hearing loss compromised those cues.…”

Electric-Acoustic Stimulation of the Auditory System: A Review of the First Decade

“…Regions of non-functional inner hair cells seem to disrupt the transmission of the spectral information required to deliver the speech feature of place of articulation [Hedrick et al, 1995;Hedrick and Jesteadt, 1996]. In addition to an evaluation of the pure tone audiogram threshold, a thorough assessment of speech perception in the best-aided preoperative condition should be obtained with monosyllables presented at normal conversational speech (65 dB SPL, sound pressure level) in quiet.…”

The interaction of formant frequency and pitch in the perception of voice category and jaw opening in female singers

“…To test this hypothesis, two separate 2 × 6 repeated measures ANOVA analyses were performed. For experienced listeners, significant effects were observed for formant pattern [F(1,14) ϭ 19.978, p ϭ 0.001] and for the interaction of formant pattern and pitch [F(5,70) ϭ 4.893, p ϭ 0.047], but not for pitch. For inexperienced listeners, significant effects Journal of Voice, Vol.…”

“…Thus, based on a less-restrictive definition of categorical perception, it might be concluded that voice types are categorically perceived. Even if the perception of voice type is not truly categorical, much can be learned about these judgments by employing classic techniques often used in speech identification studies 14 where one parameter is systematically varied and its effect on perception is measured, generating an identification curve.…”