title: Multichannel compression hearing aids: effect of channel bandwidth on consonant and vowel identification by hearing-impaired listeners.
abstract: Aided consonant and vowel identification was measured in 13 listeners with high-frequency sloping hearing losses. To investigate the influence of compression-channel analysis bandwidth on identification performance independent of the number of channels, performance was compared for three 17-channel compression systems that differed only in terms of their channel bandwidths. One compressor had narrow channels, one had widely overlapping channels, and the third had level-dependent channels. Measurements were done in quiet, in speech-shaped noise, and in a three-talker background. The results showed no effect of channel bandwidth, neither on consonant nor on vowel identification scores. This suggests that channel bandwidth per se has little influence on speech intelligibility when individually prescribed, frequency-varying compressive gain is provided.
authors: Starkey Hearing Research Center, 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 408, Berkeley, California 94704, USA. ostrelcyk@gmail.com
authors: Olaf
authors: O
authors: Strelcyk
authors: Ning
authors: N
authors: Li
authors: Joyce
authors: J
authors: Rodriguez
authors: Sridhar
authors: S
authors: Kalluri
authors: Brent
authors: B
authors: Edwards
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000368:Aged; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000523:psychology*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception