Glimpsing Speech in the Presence of Nonsimultaneous Amplitude Modulations From a Competing Talker: Effect of Modulation Rate, Age, and Hearing Loss

Abstract

Nonsimultaneous amplitude modulations from a competing talker significantly interacted with the preserved speech segment, and additional listener factors were observed for age and hearing loss. Importantly, listeners may obtain benefit from nonsimultaneous competing modulations when they match the preserved modulations of the sentence.

Glimpsing speech interrupted by speech-modulated noise

“…The intelligibility of interrupted speech has also been investigated using non-periodic interruptions, such as defining speech interruptions based on relative root-mean-square (rms) intensity (e.g., Chen and Loizou, 2012;Gaudrain and Carlyon, 2013;Guan et al, 2016), informational metrics (i.e., cochlea-scaled entropy; Stilp and Kluender, 2010;Chen and Loizou, 2012;Stilp, 2014;Oxenham et al, 2017), and consonant-vowel boundaries (e.g., Cole et al, 1996;Kewley-Port et al, 2007;Fogerty and Kewley-Port, 2009;Chen et al, 2015;Fogerty et al, 2016a). These different interruption methods have been useful in defining how different intervals of speech contribute to intelligibility.…”

“…For example, in simultaneous masking conditions, AM properties of the noise may interfere with speech recognition (e.g., Stone et al, 2012;Fogerty et al, 2016b;Humes et al, 2017). Significant interference between the modulation properties of speech and noise may also occur in non-simultaneous masking conditions that are present for interrupted speech (Fogerty et al, 2016a). However, in certain conditions, noise AM properties may be beneficial.…”

“…(2) SMN based on the missing portion of the target speech was used to replicate studies that have demonstrated a benefit of restored speech AM (e.g., Bashford et al, 1996;Shinn-Cunningham and Wang, 2008) using speech interruptions defined by speech-on-speech masking. (3) SMN based on the preceding (glimpsed) target speech AM examined if this modulation would result in better intelligibility due to perceived AM continuity (following an observation by Fogerty et al, 2016a). (4) SMN based on a random segment of speech from a different sentence examined the effect of a competing AM signal.…”

“…It appears that this improvement is contingent on what portions of the speech are being restored (e.g., vowels versus consonants, Fogerty, 2014). Furthermore, amplitude modulating the replacement noise by a competing talker may also be beneficial depending on an interaction between the modulation spectra of the preserved speech intervals and of the competing talker (Fogerty et al, 2016a).…”

Simultaneous and forward masking of vowels and stop consonants: Effects of age, hearing loss, and spectral shaping

“…Furthermore, consonant cues are frequently transient in nature compared to the longer duration vowels (Stevens, 2002;Ladefoged and Disner, 2012), and shorter stimulus durations can increase susceptibility to forward masking (Moore, 1981). In addition, consonants and vowels in sentences interact with the rate of temporal modulation present during nonsimultaneous portions of a fluctuating noise (Fogerty et al, 2016). Therefore, it is likely that a combination of simultaneous and forward masking contributes to the differences in perceptual resolvability of consonant and vowel cues in the presence of fluctuating maskers.…”