title: Effects of high-frequency suppression for speech recognition in noise in Spanish normal-hearing subjects.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Subjects with normal hearing (NH) experience lower performance in speech understanding in noise when frequency components of speech above 8 kHz are removed.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Previous studies have explored speech perception in noise under various circumstances, but none have been specifically designed to explore the relevance of frequencies above 8 kHz and, more specifically, for the Spanish language.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-nine subjects with NH, aged 19 to 55 years, and native speakers of the Spanish language listened to two sets of three disyllabic word lists with background noise. One set of words was unfiltered and included frequency components up to 22 kHz, and another set was band-pass filtered to include frequency components between 70 Hz and 8 kHz. Words were presented at 65 dB sound pressure level. Each set of words was presented with background noise with the same bandwidth limit as the accompanying list and adjusted to construct signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions of +5, 0, and -5 dB.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results demonstrate a higher performance for unfiltered words at +5 and -5 dB SNR, although not at 0 dB SNR. For SNR +5 dB and -5 dB, the average success rate in word recognition was 17% higher when words were not filtered. For the case SNR = 0, however, both conditions yield statistically similar results.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that high-frequency components above 8 kHz contribute to speech understanding in noise for subjects with NH of the Spanish language. Given these findings, it would be interesting to determine if bandwidth limitations in current hearing prostheses may contribute to known difficulties with perception of speech in noise in hearing-impaired subjects.
authors.affiliation: *Head and Neck Department, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario Insular Materno-Infantil de Gran Canaria, Acoustics Lab, and †Head and Neck Department, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario Insular Materno-Infantil de Gran Canaria, Avenida Marítima del Sur, Las Palmas, Spain.
authors.forename: Ángel
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Ramos de Miguel
authors.forename: María Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Pérez Zaballos
authors.forename: Ángel
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Ramos Macías
authors.forename: Silvia Andrea
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Borkoski Barreiro
authors.forename: Juan Carlos
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Falcón González
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pérez Plasencia
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult