Factors Affecting Sentence-in-Noise Recognition for Normal Hearing Listeners and Listeners with Hearing Loss
Journal of Audiology & Otology
;
: 81-87, 2017.
Article
in English
| WPRIM
| ID: wpr-121285
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
Despite amplified speech, listeners with hearing loss often report more difficulties understanding speech in background noise compared to normal-hearing listeners. Various factors such as deteriorated hearing sensitivity, age, suprathreshold temporal resolution, and reduced capacity of working memory and attention can attribute to their sentence-in-noise problems. The present study aims to determine a primary explanatory factor for sentence-in-noise recognition difficulties in adults with or without hearing loss. SUBJECTS ANDMETHODS:
Forty normal-hearing (NH) listeners (23-73 years) and thirty-four hearing-impaired (HI) listeners (24-80 years) participated for experimental testing. For both NH and HI group, the younger, middle-aged, older listeners were included. The sentence recognition score in noise was measured at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The ability of temporal resolution was evaluated by gap detection performance using the Gaps-In-Noise test. Listeners' short-term auditory working memory span was measured by forward and backward digit spans.RESULTS:
Overall, the HI listeners' sentence-in-noise recognition, temporal resolution abilities, and digit forward and backward spans were poorer compared to the NH listeners. Both NH and HI listeners had a substantial variability in performance. For NH listeners, only the digit backward span explained a small proportion of the variance in their sentence-in-noise performance. For the HI listeners, all the performance was influenced by age, and their sentence-in-noise difficulties were associated with various factors such as high-frequency hearing sensitivity, suprathreshold temporal resolution abilities, and working memory span. For the HI listeners, the critical predictors of the sentence-in-noise performance were composite measures of peripheral hearing sensitivity and suprathreshold temporal resolution abilities.CONCLUSIONS:
The primary explanatory factors for the sentence-in-noise recognition performance differ between NH and HI listeners. Factors affecting sentence-in-noise recognition performance differed between NH and HI listeners. The working memory was the primary predictor of the sentence-in-noise scores for the NH individuals. In contrast, a combination of factors seemed to contributed to speech-in-noise understanding for the HI listeners. Given this, we must be careful not to generalize findings from the NH listeners to the HI individuals.
Full text:
Available
Index:
WPRIM (Western Pacific)
Main subject:
Signal-To-Noise Ratio
/
Hearing
/
Hearing Loss
/
Memory, Short-Term
/
Noise
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Journal of Audiology & Otology
Year:
2017
Type:
Article
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