How Face Masks Interfere With Speech Understanding of Normal-Hearing Individuals: Vision Makes the Difference.
Otol Neurotol
; 43(3): 282-288, 2022 03 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1722677
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To investigate the effects of wearing a simulated mask on speech perception of normal-hearing subjects. STUDYDESIGN:
Prospective cohort study.SETTING:
University hospital. PATIENTS Fifteen normal-hearing, native German speakers (8 female, 7 male). INTERVENTION Different experimental conditions with and without simulated face masks using the audiovisual version of the female German Matrix test (Oldenburger Satztest, OLSA). MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURES:
Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at speech intelligibility of 80%.RESULTS:
The SNR at which 80% speech intelligibility was achieved deteriorated by a mean of 4.1âdB SNR when simulating a medical mask and by 5.1âdB SNR when simulating a cloth mask in comparison to the audiovisual condition without mask. Interestingly, the contribution of the visual component alone was 2.6âdB SNR and thus had a larger effect than the acoustic component in the medical mask condition.CONCLUSIONS:
As expected, speech understanding with face masks was significantly worse than under control conditions. Thus, the speaker's use of face masks leads to a significant deterioration of speech understanding by the normal-hearing listener. The data suggest that these effects may play a role in many everyday situations that typically involve noise.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Speech Perception
/
Masks
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
Otol Neurotol
Journal subject:
Neurology
/
Otolaryngology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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