title: Autocorrelation factors and intelligibility of Japanese monosyllables in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss.
abstract: Some Japanese monosyllables contain consonants that are not easily discernible for individuals with sensorineural hearing loss. However, the acoustic features that make these monosyllables difficult to discern have not been clearly identified. Here, this study used the autocorrelation function (ACF), which can capture temporal features of signals, to clarify the factors influencing speech intelligibility. For each monosyllable, five factors extracted from the ACF [Φ(0): total energy; τ1and ϕ1: delay time and amplitude of the maximum peak; τe: effective duration; Wϕ(0): spectral centroid], voice onset time, speech intelligibility index, and loudness level were compared with the percentage of correctly perceived articulations (144 ears) obtained by 50 Japanese vowel and consonant-vowel monosyllables produced by one female speaker. Results showed that median effective duration [(τe)med] was strongly correlated with the percentage of correctly perceived articulations of the consonants (r = 0.87, p < 0.01). (τe)medvalues were computed by running ACFs with the time lag at which the magnitude of the logarithmic-ACF envelope had decayed to -10 dB. Effective duration is a measure of temporal pattern persistence, i.e., the duration over which the waveform maintains a stable pattern. The authors postulate that low recognition ability is related to degraded perception of temporal fluctuation patterns.
authors.affiliation: Area of Architecture and Production Design Engineering, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science & Engineering, Shimane University, Shimane, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryota
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shimokura
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Nara Medical University, Nara, Japan.
authors.forename: Sakie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Akasaka
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Nara Medical University, Nara, Japan.
authors.forename: Tadashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishimura
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Nara Medical University, Nara, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hosoi
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Systems Engineering, Wakayama University, Wakayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshie
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsui
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality