title: Understanding frequency-compressed Mandarin sentences: Role of vowels.
abstract: Frequency compression (FC) is an effective alternative to conventional amplification for patients with severe-to-profound middle- and high-frequency hearing loss and with some residual low frequency hearing. The present work investigated the underlying factors accounting for the intelligibility of FC-processed speech. Eighteen normal-hearing participants listened to FC-processed Mandarin sentences, and testing conditions included two compression strategies (i.e., linear and nonlinear), four degrees of compression, and two segmental conditions (i.e., vowel-center and vowel-onset). Results showed that the nonlinear strategy outperformed the linear strategy in enhancing the intelligibility of FC-processed sentences. A small frequency range of source compression region involved a lesser degree of compression, and favored a higher intelligibility score. Vowel segments carried a large amount of intelligibility information contained in nonlinearly frequency-compressed sentences, but could not fully account for the intelligibility improvement from nonlinear frequency-compression. The intelligibility benefit of FC-processed Mandarin sentences may be partially attributed to the additional F1-F2 transitional spectral envelope cue provided by nonlinear FC with the F1-included spectral region preserved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Xueyuan Road 1088#, Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518055, China.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Meng Wah Complex, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Fiona W S
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010700:Phonetics; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult