title: Selection of test-setup parameters to target specific signal-to-noise regions in speech-on-speech intelligibility testing.
abstract: To investigate the magnitude of the change in speech-reception threshold (SRT) provided by altering four different test-setup parameters. Furthermore, to determine whether these changes in SRT are of a sufficient magnitude, such that they can be used to design a test-setup in future experiments that target a predefined signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. This could be particularly important if the test contrast investigated is confounded with test SNR.
  
  
  
  The investigated test-setup parameters were: Spatial separation between target (0°) and maskers (±15°, ±30°, ±45°, or ±75°), number of maskers (two, four or six), scoring method (scoring percent-correct words or sentences) and masker gender (same or opposite to target). Twenty SRTs were measured per test subject.
  
  
  
  Twenty hearing-impaired test subjects participated over two visits.
  
  
  
  Alteration of masker gender, spatial separation between target and masker (±15°, ±30°, ± 45°), and scoring method was shown to offer SRT changes of a sufficient magnitude. The different test setups resulted in average SRTs ranging from -4.0 to 3.3 dB.
  
  
  
  Deliberately selecting test setup parameters can change the overall difficulty of the test by up to 7.3 dB SRT. Thus, a future experiment can, to this extent, be designed to target a specific SNR region.
authors.affiliation: a Eriksholm Research Centre , Snekkersten , Denmark.
authors.forename: Filip M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Rønne
authors.affiliation: a Eriksholm Research Centre , Snekkersten , Denmark.
authors.forename: Søren
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Laugesen
authors.affiliation: a Eriksholm Research Centre , Snekkersten , Denmark.
authors.forename: Niels Søgaard
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Jensen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test
keywords: Speech perception; behavioral measures; hearing aids; psychoacoustics/hearing science