Development of a quick speech-in-noise test for measuring signal-to-noise ratio loss in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.
This paper describes a shortened and improved version of the Speech in Noise (SIN) Test (Etymotic Research, 1993). In the first two of four experiments, the level of a female talker relative to that of four-talker babble was adjusted sentence by sentence to produce 50% correct scores for normal-hearing subjects. In the second two experiments, those sentences-in-babble that produced either lack of equivalence or high across-subject variability in scores were discarded. These experiments produced 12 equivalent lists, each containing six sentences, with one sentence at each adjusted signal-to-noise ratio of 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, and 0 dB. Six additional lists were also made equivalent when the scores of particular pairs were averaged. The final lists comprise the "QuickSIN" test that measures the SNR a listener requires to understand 50% of key words in sentences in a background of babble. The standard deviation of single-list scores is 1.4 dB SNR for hearing-impaired subjects, based on test-retest data. A single QuickSIN list takes approximately one minute to administer and provides an estimate of SNR loss accurate to +/-2.7 dB at the 95% confidence level.
Killion
Mead C
MC
Etymotic Research, Inc, Elk Grove Village, Illinois 60007, USA.
Niquette
Patricia A
PA
Gudmundsen
Gail I
GI
Revit
Lawrence J
LJ
Banerjee
Shilpi
S
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test / Q000379:methods*