Effects of steep high-frequency hearing loss on speech recognition using temporal fine structure in low-frequency region.
The present study examined the effects of steep high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (SHF-SNHL) on speech recognition using acoustic temporal fine structure (TFS) in the low-frequency region where the absolute thresholds appeared to be normal. In total, 28 participants with SHF-SNHL were assigned to 3 groups according to the cut-off frequency (1, 2, and 4 kHz, respectively) of their pure-tone absolute thresholds. Fourteen age-matched normal-hearing (NH) individuals were enrolled as controls. For each Mandarin sentence, the acoustic TFS in 10 frequency bands (each 3-ERB wide) was extracted using the Hilbert transform and was further lowpass filtered at 1, 2, and 4 kHz. Speech recognition scores were compared among the NH and 1-, 2-, and 4-kHz SHF-SNHL groups using stimuli with varying bandwidths. Results showed that speech recognition with the same TFS-speech stimulus bandwidth differed significantly in groups and filtering conditions. Sentence recognition in quiet conditions was better than that in noise. Compared with the NH participants, nearly all the SHF-SNHL participants showed significantly poorer sentence recognition within their frequency regions with "normal hearing" (defined clinically by normal absolute thresholds) in both quiet and noisy conditions. These may result from disrupted auditory nerve function in the "normal hearing" low-frequency regions.
Department of Otolaryngology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China.
Bei
B
Li
College of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200000, China.
Limin
L
Hou
School of Rehabilitation and Communication Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
Li
L
Xu
Department of Otolaryngology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China.
Hui
H
Wang
Department of Otolaryngology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China.
Guang
G
Yang
Department of Otolaryngology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China. Electronic address: yinshankai@china.com.
Shankai
S
Yin
Department of Otolaryngology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China. Electronic address: yanmeifeng2008@gmail.com.
Yanmei
Y
Feng
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003056:Cochlear Nerve / Q000503:physiopathology; D006316:Hearing Loss, High-Frequency / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test