Frequency selectivity and consonant intelligibility in sensorineural hearing loss.
The relations between frequency selectivity and consonant intelligibility were investigated in subjects with sensorineural hearing loss in an attempt to derive predictive indices. Three matched pairs of subjects with similar audiometric configurations (high-frequency, flat or low-frequency hearing loss) but significantly different word-intelligibility scores were tested. Characteristics of psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs) for high- and low-frequency probes were compared with speech-intelligibility performance for high- and low-frequency consonant-vowel syllables. Frequency-specific relations between PTC characteristics and consonant-intelligibility performance were observed in the subject pairs with high-frequency and flat sensorineural hearing loss. Corresponding results for the subject pair with low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss were equivocal.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D006316:Hearing Loss, High-Frequency / Q000175:diagnosis; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D010700:Phonetics; D010898:Pitch Perception; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests