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Sentence perception in noise by hearing-aid users predicted by syllable-constituent perception and the use of context

2020; Acoustical Society of America; Volume: 147; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1121/10.0000563

1520-9024

James D. Miller, Charles S. Watson, Marjorie R. Leek, David J. Wark, Pamela E. Souza, Sandra Gordon‐Salant, Jayne B. Ahlstrom, Judy R. Dubno,

Noise Effects and Management

Masked sentence perception by hearing-aid users is strongly correlated with three variables: (1) the ability to hear phonetic details as estimated by the identification of syllable constituents in quiet or in noise; (2) the ability to use situational context that is extrinsic to the speech signal; and (3) the ability to use inherent context provided by the speech signal itself. This approach is called “the syllable-constituent, contextual theory of speech perception” and is supported by the performance of 57 hearing-aid users in the identification of 109 syllable constituents presented in a background of 12-talker babble and the identification of words in naturally spoken sentences presented in the same babble. A simple mathematical model, inspired in large part by Boothroyd and Nittrouer [(1988). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 84, 101–114] and Fletcher [Allen (1996) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 1825–1834], predicts sentence perception from listeners' abilities to recognize isolated syllable constituents and to benefit from context. When the identification accuracy of syllable constituents is greater than about 55%, individual differences in context utilization play a minor role in determining the sentence scores. As syllable-constituent scores fall below 55%, individual differences in context utilization play an increasingly greater role in determining sentence scores. Implications for hearing-aid design goals and fitting procedures are discussed.