title: A comparison of word-recognition abilities assessed with digit pairs and digit triplets in multitalker babble.
abstract: This study compares, for listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss, the recognition performances obtained with digit-pair and digit-triplet stimulus sets presented in multitalker babble. Digits 1 through 10 (excluding 7) were mixed in approximately 1,000 ms segments of babble from 4 to -20 dB signal-to-babble (S/B) ratios, concatenated to form the pairs and triplets, and recorded on compact disc. Nine and eight digits were presented at each level for the digit-triplet and digit-pair paradigms, respectively. For the listeners with normal hearing and the listeners with hearing loss, the recognition performances were 3 dB and 1.2 dB better, respectively, on digit pairs than on digit triplets. For equal intelligibility, the listeners with hearing loss required an approximately 10 dB more favorable S/B than the listeners with normal hearing. The distributions of the 50% points for the two groups had no overlap.
authors.affiliation: James H. Quillen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Mountain Home, Johnson City, TN, USA. richard.wilson2@med.va.gov
authors.forename: Richard H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Christopher A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Burks
authors.forename: Deborah G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Weakley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011594:Psychometrics; D012016:Reference Values; D013067:Speech Perception; D014825:Vocabulary