Face Masks Impact Auditory and Audiovisual Consonant Recognition in Children With and Without Hearing Loss

Abstract

Teachers and students are wearing face masks in many classrooms to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Face masks disrupt speech understanding by concealing lip-reading cues and reducing transmission of high-frequency acoustic speech content. Transparent masks provide greater access to visual speech cues than opaque masks but tend to cause greater acoustic attenuation. This study examined the effects of four types of face masks on auditory-only and audiovisual speech recognition in 18 children with bilateral hearing loss, 16 children with normal hearing, and 38 adults with normal hearing tested in their homes, as well as 15 adults with normal hearing tested in the laboratory. Stimuli simulated the acoustic attenuation and visual obstruction caused by four different face masks: hospital, fabric, and two transparent masks. Participants tested in their homes completed auditory-only and audiovisual consonant recognition tests with speech-spectrum noise at 0 dB SNR. Adults tested in the lab completed the same tests at 0 and/or −10 dB SNR. A subset of participants from each group completed a visual-only consonant recognition test with no mask. Consonant recognition accuracy and transmission of three phonetic features (place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing) were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models. Children with hearing loss identified consonants less accurately than children with normal hearing and adults with normal hearing tested at 0 dB SNR. However, all the groups were similarly impacted by face masks. Under auditory-only conditions, results were consistent with the pattern of high-frequency acoustic attenuation; hospital masks had the least impact on performance. Under audiovisual conditions, transparent masks had less impact on performance than opaque masks. High-frequency attenuation and visual obstruction had the greatest impact on place perception. The latter finding was consistent with the visual-only feature transmission data. These results suggest that the combination of noise and face masks negatively impacts speech understanding in children. The best mask for promoting speech understanding in noisy environments depend on whether visual cues will be accessible: hospital masks are best under auditory-only conditions, but well-fit transparent masks are best when listeners have a clear, consistent view of the talker’s face.

Face masking for children - time to reconsider

“… 6 Opponents, on the other hand, would argue that face masks can disrupt speech understanding by concealing lipreading cues and reducing transmission of high-frequency acoustic speech content, especially for children with sight and hearing problems. 7 Opponents would also argue that young children would struggle to wear their mask properly and hygienically for prolonged periods even with the best of intentions.…”

Where on the face do we look during phonemic restoration: An eye-tracking study

“…Several studies have investigated audiovisual speech perception within the context of a full speaking face; however, fewer studies have investigated gaze patterns or speech perception in adults when articulatory features are unavailable or obscured ( Jordan and Thomas, 2011 ; Irwin et al, 2017a ). More recently, several studies have specifically investigated the impact that face masks have had on speech perception in different listening situations in adults ( Brown et al, 2021 ; Smiljanic et al, 2021 ; Yi et al, 2021 ) and children ( Lalonde et al, 2022 ) given the rise of mask wearing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies collectively suggest that speech understanding is negatively impacted by masking, especially in the presence of noise, physical distancing, and nonnative speech.…”

“…These studies collectively suggest that speech understanding is negatively impacted by masking, especially in the presence of noise, physical distancing, and nonnative speech. The use of transparent face masks can provide visual articulatory cues where listeners have a clear view of the speaker’s face and therefore support speech understanding, especially in the presence of noise ( Yi et al, 2021 ; Lalonde et al, 2022 ).…”

Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask

“…However, masking has been shown to affect recognition of unfamiliar voices and their mapping to faces: 12-month-old infants were not able to recognize an unfamiliar speaker's voices when faces were partially occluded, unlike 24-month-old infants (Orena et al, In Press ). Moreover, face masks have been shown to degrade speech understanding in children, namely consonant recognition, similarly to adults (Lalonde et al, In Press ).…”

“…To summarize, recent studies have suggested that changes in everyday activities during the pandemic might affect language development (Davies et al, 2021 ; Deoni et al, 2021 ). The use of face masks, in particular, and related changes in the visual/acoustic speech cues, might alter certain aspects of speech processing, such as voice recognition, word recognition, and consonant recognition (Singh et al, 2021 ; Lalonde et al, In Press ; Orena et al, In Press ). However, developmental research is still in need to understand whether and when these potential effects take place during the early development, specifically, whether pandemic-related changes, namely, usage of face masks, affect infants' speech processing during the 1st year of life.…”