title: Abnormal intelligibility of speech in competing speech and in noise in a frequency region where audiometric thresholds are near-normal for hearing-impaired listeners.
abstract: The ability to identify syllables in the presence of speech-shaped noise and a single-talker background was measured for 18 normal-hearing (NH) listeners, and for eight hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with near-normal audiometric thresholds for frequencies up to 1.5 kHz and a moderate to severe hearing loss above 2 kHz. The stimulus components were restricted to the low-frequency (≤1.5 kHz) region, where audiometric thresholds were classified clinically as normal or near normal for all listeners. Syllable identification in a speech background was measured as a function of the fundamental-frequency (F0) difference between competing voices (ranging from 1 semitone to ∼1 octave). HI listeners had poorer syllable intelligibility than NH listeners in all conditions. Intelligibility decreased by about the same amount for both groups when the F0 difference between competing voices was reduced. The results suggest that the ability to identify speech against noise or an interfering talker was disrupted in frequency regions of near-normal hearing for HI listeners, but that the ability to benefit from the tested F0 differences was not disrupted. This deficit was not predicted by the elevated absolute thresholds for speech in speech, but it was for speech in noise. It may result from supra-threshold auditory deficits associated with aging.
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 36-757, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA. Electronic address: legeragnes@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Agnès C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Léger
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, École normale supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Ives
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, UMR CNRS 8248, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, École normale supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lorenzi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D001299:Audiometry / Q000379:methods*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006309:Hearing; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult