Assessing the efficacy of hearing-aid amplification using a phoneme test

J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 Mar;141(3):1739. doi: 10.1121/1.4976066.

Abstract

Consonant-vowel (CV) perception experiments provide valuable insights into how humans process speech. Here, two CV identification experiments were conducted in a group of hearing-impaired (HI) listeners, using 14 consonants followed by the vowel /ɑ/. The CVs were presented in quiet and with added speech-shaped noise at signal-to-noise ratios of 0, 6, and 12 dB. The HI listeners were provided with two different amplification schemes for the CVs. In the first experiment, a frequency-independent amplification (flat-gain) was provided and the CVs were presented at the most-comfortable loudness level. In the second experiment, a frequency-dependent prescriptive gain was provided. The CV identification results showed that, while the average recognition error score obtained with the frequency-dependent amplification was lower than that obtained with the flat-gain, the main confusions made by the listeners on a token basis remained the same in a majority of the cases. An entropy measure and an angular distance measure were proposed to assess the highly individual effects of the frequency-dependent gain on the consonant confusions in the HI listeners. The results suggest that the proposed measures, in combination with a well-controlled phoneme speech test, may be used to assess the impact of hearing-aid signal processing on speech intelligibility.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation / methods*
  • Aged
  • Audiometry, Speech / methods*
  • Electric Stimulation
  • Equipment Design
  • Hearing Aids*
  • Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / diagnosis
  • Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / psychology
  • Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / rehabilitation*
  • Humans
  • Noise / adverse effects
  • Perceptual Masking
  • Persons With Hearing Impairments / psychology
  • Persons With Hearing Impairments / rehabilitation*
  • Phonetics*
  • Predictive Value of Tests
  • Recognition, Psychology
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Speech Acoustics*
  • Speech Intelligibility
  • Speech Perception*
  • Voice Quality*