Multichannel compression hearing aids: Effect of channel bandwidth on consonant and vowel identification by hearing-impaired listeners

Strelcyk, Olaf; Li, Ning; Rodríguez, Joyce; Kalluri, Sridhar; Edwards, Brent

doi:10.1121/1.4789894

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…OHI listeners showed shallow psychometric slopes in both unaided and aided listening conditions, as would be expected from their inaccurate consonant-identification performance, even in quiet [ 19 , 58 , 65 ]. Other studies have found that unaided OHI listeners have shallow psychometric slopes both in consonant-identification tasks [ 10 , 15 ] and sentence testing [ 66 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aided and Unaided Speech Perception by Older Hearing Impaired Listeners

et al. 2015

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The most common complaint of older hearing impaired (OHI) listeners is difficulty understanding speech in the presence of noise. However, tests of consonant-identification and sentence reception threshold (SeRT) provide different perspectives on the magnitude of impairment. Here we quantified speech perception difficulties in 24 OHI listeners in unaided and aided conditions by analyzing (1) consonant-identification thresholds and consonant confusions for 20 onset and 20 coda consonants in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables presented at consonant-specific signal-to-noise (SNR) levels, and (2) SeRTs obtained with the Quick Speech in Noise Test (QSIN) and the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT). Compared to older normal hearing (ONH) listeners, nearly all unaided OHI listeners showed abnormal consonant-identification thresholds, abnormal consonant confusions, and reduced psychometric function slopes. Average elevations in consonant-identification thresholds exceeded 35 dB, correlated strongly with impairments in mid-frequency hearing, and were greater for hard-to-identify consonants. Advanced digital hearing aids (HAs) improved average consonant-identification thresholds by more than 17 dB, with significant HA benefit seen in 83% of OHI listeners. HAs partially normalized consonant-identification thresholds, reduced abnormal consonant confusions, and increased the slope of psychometric functions. Unaided OHI listeners showed much smaller elevations in SeRTs (mean 6.9 dB) than in consonant-identification thresholds and SeRTs in unaided listening conditions correlated strongly (r = 0.91) with identification thresholds of easily identified consonants. HAs produced minimal SeRT benefit (2.0 dB), with only 38% of OHI listeners showing significant improvement. HA benefit on SeRTs was accurately predicted (r = 0.86) by HA benefit on easily identified consonants. Consonant-identification tests can accurately predict sentence processing deficits and HA benefit in OHI listeners.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aided and Unaided Speech Perception by Older Hearing Impaired Listeners

et al. 2015

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“…Multi-band AGC has been widely studied in unilateral hearing aid (e.g., Plomp, 1988;Yund & Buckles, 1995;Moore et al, 1999;Moore et al, 2011;Strelcyk et al, 2013) and CI (Stone & Moore, 2003;Stone & Moore, 2004;Stone & Moore, 2007;Stone & Moore, 2008) applications. Masked speech intelligibility performance has been shown to improve with the number of bands at an aided ear for hearing aid users (Yund & Buckles, 1995), and the multi-band strategy has been used in conjunction with linked AGC in simulated hearing aid studies (Schwartz & Shinn-Cunningham, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Dynamic-range Automatic Gain Control on Sentence Intelligibility With a Speech Masker in Simulated Cochlear Implant Listening

2019

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Objectives: "Channel-linked" and "multi-band" front-end automatic gain control (AGC) were examined as alternatives to single-band, channel-unlinked AGC in simulated bilateral cochlear implant (CI) processing. In channel-linked AGC, the same gain control signal was applied to the input signals to both of the two CIs ("channels"). In multi-band AGC, gain control acted independently on each of a number of narrow frequency regions per channel.Design: Speech intelligibility performance was measured with a single target (to the left, at −15 or −30º) and a single, symmetrically-opposed masker (to the right) at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of −2 decibels. Binaural sentence intelligibility was measured as a function of whether channel linking was present and of the number of AGC bands. Analysis of variance was performed to assess condition effects on percent correct across the two spatial arrangements, both at a high and a low AGC threshold. Acoustic analysis was conducted to compare post-compressed better-ear SNR, interaural differences, and monaural within-band envelope levels across processing conditions.Results: Analyses of variance indicated significant main effects of both channel linking and number of bands at low threshold, and of channel linking at high threshold. These improvements were accompanied by several acoustic changes. Linked AGC produced a more favorable better-ear SNR and better preserved broadband ILD statistics, but did not reduce dynamic range as much as unlinked AGC. Multi-band AGC sometimes improved better-ear SNR statistics and always improved broadband ILD statistics whenever the AGC channels were unlinked. Multi-band AGC produced output envelope levels that were higher than single-band AGC.Conclusions: These results favor strategies that incorporate channel-linked AGC and multi-band AGC for bilateral CIs. Linked AGC aids speech intelligibility in spatially separated speech, but reduces the degree to which dynamic range is compressed. Combining multi-band and channellinked AGC offsets the potential impact of diminished dynamic range with linked AGC without sacrificing the intelligibility gains observed with linked AGC.

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“…However, aided OHI listeners continue to show large deficits in consonant identification in comparison to older listeners with normal hearing (ONH), particularly for harder-to-identify consonants [ 7 ]. For example, when tested with large consonant sets aided OHI listeners with mild to moderately severe hearing losses identify only 60–75% of consonants even in quiet [ 9 , 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech Perception in Older Hearing Impaired Listeners: Benefits of Perceptual Training

et al. 2015

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Hearing aids (HAs) only partially restore the ability of older hearing impaired (OHI) listeners to understand speech in noise, due in large part to persistent deficits in consonant identification. Here, we investigated whether adaptive perceptual training would improve consonant-identification in noise in sixteen aided OHI listeners who underwent 40 hours of computer-based training in their homes. Listeners identified 20 onset and 20 coda consonants in 9,600 consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables containing different vowels (/ɑ/, /i/, or /u/) and spoken by four different talkers. Consonants were presented at three consonant-specific signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) spanning a 12 dB range. Noise levels were adjusted over training sessions based on d’ measures. Listeners were tested before and after training to measure (1) changes in consonant-identification thresholds using syllables spoken by familiar and unfamiliar talkers, and (2) sentence reception thresholds (SeRTs) using two different sentence tests. Consonant-identification thresholds improved gradually during training. Laboratory tests of d’ thresholds showed an average improvement of 9.1 dB, with 94% of listeners showing statistically significant training benefit. Training normalized consonant confusions and improved the thresholds of some consonants into the normal range. Benefits were equivalent for onset and coda consonants, syllables containing different vowels, and syllables presented at different SNRs. Greater training benefits were found for hard-to-identify consonants and for consonants spoken by familiar than unfamiliar talkers. SeRTs, tested with simple sentences, showed less elevation than consonant-identification thresholds prior to training and failed to show significant training benefit, although SeRT improvements did correlate with improvements in consonant thresholds. We argue that the lack of SeRT improvement reflects the dominant role of top-down semantic processing in processing simple sentences and that greater transfer of benefit would be evident in the comprehension of more unpredictable speech material.

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Multichannel compression hearing aids: Effect of channel bandwidth on consonant and vowel identification by hearing-impaired listeners

Cited by 8 publications

References 49 publications

Aided and Unaided Speech Perception by Older Hearing Impaired Listeners

Aided and Unaided Speech Perception by Older Hearing Impaired Listeners

The Effects of Dynamic-range Automatic Gain Control on Sentence Intelligibility With a Speech Masker in Simulated Cochlear Implant Listening

Speech Perception in Older Hearing Impaired Listeners: Benefits of Perceptual Training

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