Listening Effort and Speech Perception Performance Using Different Facemasks.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of eight different facemasks on speech perception and listening effort in listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing loss by manipulating both mask type and background noise levels. METHOD: Forty adults listened to Quick Speech-in-Noise Test sentences recorded by a female talker through eight different facemasks including a baseline condition with no mask. Listeners were tested in the sound field positioned 6 ft from the loudspeaker. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss and listening effort were measured. RESULTS: Listeners with NH exhibited a mild SNR loss, whereas those with hearing loss experienced a moderate SNR loss. Scores for the mild hearing loss group were significantly poorer (higher) than those with slight hearing loss. Speech perception performance was best in the no mask, KN95, and surgical mask conditions and poorest in the cloth mask and cloth mask plus face shield conditions for all groups. As listening effort decreased, speech perception increased for all groups. CONCLUSIONS: The impact of different types of facemasks on speech perception in noise was demonstrated in this study indicating that as the SNR was reduced, listening effort increased and speech perception performance decreased for listeners with NH and slight/mild hearing loss. No mask, KN95, and surgical masks had the least impact on performance, whereas cloth masks posed a significant detriment to communication. If communication is to occur in a background of noise while wearing masks, a KN95 mask and an SNR of at least +15 dB is recommended regardless of hearing status.

Validation of Male Talker Recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold Test and the Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to validate recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold (SPSRT) test and Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test (SPPIT) for Spanish-speaking children using a native, bilingual Spanish-English male talker of Castilian peninsular dialect from Spain. METHOD: Seventy native Spanish-speaking children from a variety of countries participated. Fifty-eight participants had normal hearing, and the remaining 12 had mild hearing loss in at least one ear. Male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT were administered to obtain baseline validation data. Participants listened to the stimuli and pointed to the appropriate item on the picture boards that represented the word they heard. RESULTS: Mean SRTs were within 5 dB of mean pure-tone averages resulting in a positive correlation. Performance-intensity functions for the SPPIT showed minimal significant differences across the three test lists, and performance increased as the sensation level increased. CONCLUSIONS: The male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT are valid speech perception picture-pointing assessments that can be used with Spanish-speaking children. The recordings present the Spanish target word while simultaneously presenting the English interpretation for ease of scoring.

Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to construct and validate a recorded word recognition test for monolingual Spanish-speaking children utilizing a picture board and a picture-pointing task. Design The Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test was developed and validated in this study. Test construction steps included (a) producing new digital recordings of word lists created by Comstock and Martin (1984) using a bilingual Spanish-English female, (b) obtaining list equivalency, (c) creating digitally illustrated pictures representing the word lists, (d) validating the pictures using monolingual Spanish-speaking and bilingual Spanish-English children, and (e) re-establishing list equivalency and obtaining performance-intensity functions using a picture-pointing task with monolingual Spanish-speaking children and bilingual Spanish-English adults. Results Normative data for three Spanish word recognition lists were established. Performance-intensity functions at sensation levels from 0 to 40 dB SL in 8-dB steps were obtained, establishing list equivalency for Lists 1, 2, and 3. Conclusions The Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test was developed and validated as a picture-pointing task for word recognition with monolingual Spanish-speaking children. The two validated channel recordings include an English translation for ease of testing by clinicians lacking Spanish language skills. Future validation will be conducted with bilingual Spanish-English children with normal hearing and with hearing loss.

Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold Test.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to construct a recorded speech recognition threshold (SRT) test for Spanish-speaking children utilizing a picture board and a picture-pointing task. Design The Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold (SPSRT) test was developed and validated in this study. Test construction steps included (a) stimulus selection, (b) assessment of familiarity, (c) digital recording, (d) creation of pictures that accurately depicted the target word from the stimulus set, and (e) validation of the test and recordings. SRTs were obtained from 24 Spanish-speaking children whose 1st language was Spanish. Results Normative data are presented that validate the SPSRT and establish the baseline relationship between the pure-tone average and the SRT obtained with the SPSRT. Results indicated that the SPSRT obtained using this test should be within 2-12 dB of an individual's pure-tone average for Spanish-speaking children with normal hearing and minimal hearing loss. Conclusions The SPSRT was developed and validated as a picture-pointing Spanish SRT test to be used with Spanish-speaking children. The 2-channel recording contains an English translation track, making this test easy to administer and interpret for clinicians without knowledge of Spanish.

Test-Retest Reliability of Dual-Recorded Brainstem versus Cortical Auditory-Evoked Potentials to Speech.

BACKGROUND: Auditory-evoked potentials have proven useful in the objective evaluation of sound encoding at different stages of the auditory pathway (brainstem and cortex). Yet, their utility for use in clinical assessment and empirical research relies critically on the precision and test-retest repeatability of the measure. PURPOSE: To determine how subcortical/cortical classes of auditory neural responses directly compare in terms of their internal consistency and test-retest reliability within and between listeners. RESEARCH DESIGN: A descriptive cohort study describing the dispersion of electrophysiological measures. STUDY SAMPLE: Eight young, normal-hearing female listeners. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: We recorded auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), brainstem frequency-following responses (FFRs), and cortical (P1-N1-P2) auditory-evoked potentials elicited by speech sounds in the same set of listeners. We reassessed responses within each of four different test sessions over a period of 1 mo, allowing us to detect possible changes in latency/amplitude characteristics with finer detail than in previous studies. RESULTS: Our findings show that brainstem and cortical amplitude/latency measures are remarkably stable; with the exception of slight prolongation of the P1 wave, we found no significant variation in any response measure. Intraclass correlation analysis revealed that the speech-evoked FFR amplitude and latency measures achieved superior repeatability (intraclass correlation coefficient >0.85) among the more widely used obligatory brainstem (ABR) and cortical (P1-N1-P2) auditory-evoked potentials. Contrasting these intersubject effects, intrasubject variability (i.e., within-subject coefficient of variation) revealed that while latencies were more stable than amplitudes, brainstem and cortical responses did not differ in their variability at the single subject level. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that (1) the variability of auditory neural responses increases with ascending level along the auditory neuroaxis (cortex > brainstem) between subjects but remains highly stable within subjects and (2) speech-FFRs might provide a more stable measure of auditory function than other conventional responses (e.g., click-ABR), given their lower inter- and intrasubject variability.

Corpus of deaf speech for acoustic and speech production research.

A corpus of recordings of deaf speech is introduced. Adults who were pre- or post-lingually deafened as well as those with normal hearing read standardized speech passages totaling 11 h of .wav recordings. Preliminary acoustic analyses are included to provide a glimpse of the kinds of analyses that can be conducted with this corpus of recordings. Long term average speech spectra as well as spectral moment analyses provide considerable insight into differences observed in the speech of talkers judged to have low, medium, or high speech intelligibility.

The Effect of Conventional and Transparent Surgical Masks on Speech Understanding in Individuals with and without Hearing Loss.

BACKGROUND: It is generally well known that speech perception is often improved with integrated audiovisual input whether in quiet or in noise. In many health-care environments, however, conventional surgical masks block visual access to the mouth and obscure other potential facial cues. In addition, these environments can be noisy. Although these masks may not alter the acoustic properties, the presence of noise in addition to the lack of visual input can have a deleterious effect on speech understanding. A transparent ("see-through") surgical mask may help to overcome this issue. PURPOSE: To compare the effect of noise and various visual input conditions on speech understanding for listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing impairment using different surgical masks. RESEARCH DESIGN: Participants were assigned to one of three groups based on hearing sensitivity in this quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study. STUDY SAMPLE: A total of 31 adults participated in this study: one talker, ten listeners with NH, ten listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss, and ten listeners with severe-to-profound hearing loss. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Selected lists from the Connected Speech Test were digitally recorded with and without surgical masks and then presented to the listeners at 65 dB HL in five conditions against a background of four-talker babble (+10 dB SNR): without a mask (auditory only), without a mask (auditory and visual), with a transparent mask (auditory only), with a transparent mask (auditory and visual), and with a paper mask (auditory only). RESULTS: A significant difference was found in the spectral analyses of the speech stimuli with and without the masks; however, no more than ∼2 dB root mean square. Listeners with NH performed consistently well across all conditions. Both groups of listeners with hearing impairment benefitted from visual input from the transparent mask. The magnitude of improvement in speech perception in noise was greatest for the severe-to-profound group. CONCLUSIONS: Findings confirm improved speech perception performance in noise for listeners with hearing impairment when visual input is provided using a transparent surgical mask. Most importantly, the use of the transparent mask did not negatively affect speech perception performance in noise.

Variability of electrode positions using electrode caps.

We investigated the variability of electrode positions for a multi-channel, custom electrode cap placed onto participants' heads without taking scalp measurements. The electrode positions were digitized in a three-dimensional space for 10 young adult participants on three separate occasions. Positional variability was determined for 15 selected electrodes within the three-dimensional preauricular-nasion (PAN) coordinate system and from this system, angular coordinate variability was also determined. The standard deviations of the 15 selected electrodes ranged from 3.0 to 12.7 mm in the PAN system. These data resulted in a variability of 2.0 degrees to 10.4 degrees among the angular coordinates. The measurements indicated slightly greater variability of electrode positions compared to studies when electrodes were placed using scalp measurements. The implication of this study is that the use of electrode caps may not be appropriate when electroencephalographic (EEG) or evoked potential (EP) techniques depend on accurate electrode placement. Additionally, if a longitudinal study is performed, electrode locations should be checked to ensure that they conform with previous sessions.

Long-term stability of N1 sources using low-resolution electromagnetic tomography.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the long-term stability of auditory N1 sources using low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). Data collected from 72 electrodes in ten young adult female participants were analyzed. For each participant, N1 peak amplitude and latency values at Cz (referred to M2) were compared for right, left, and bilateral stimulation across three separate recording sessions. Further, sources calculated by LORETA were analyzed in three regions of interest: right temporal, left temporal, and frontal. Peak amplitude and latency measurements were stable across session and ear of stimulation. Three-way RM-ANOVAs revealed relatively stable source amplitudes and stable three-dimensional locations of the sources in each region of interest with shifts of up to 2 cm around the mean locations. The 2 cm variability may be attributable both to normal hemispheric asymmetries and electrode placement variability. These results suggest that N1 scalp activity and its underlying sources are stable.

Ototoxic protection of sodium thiosulfate: daily vs constant infusion.

OBJECTIVE: Compare the effect of a daily dose of sodium thiosulfate (STS) to continuous infusion of STS on Hartley albino guinea pig (HAGP) on cisplatin (CP)-induced sensorineural hearing loss. Study design Prospective randomized pilot study comparing a single daily dose of STS to a constant controlled infusion of STS given the middle ear space (MES) with an ototoxic regimen of CP. The hearing thresholds will be obtained by auditory brainstem response (ABR) 1 week before and after treatment. Treatment effects on responses at 2, 8, and 16 kHz signals will be investigated by an analysis of variance with one between subjects' condition and two within subjects' conditions. SETTING: Basic science laboratory. RESULTS: STS protection resulted in significantly less hearing loss post-treatment for the protected ears. Guinea pigs with continuous infusion of STS demonstrated less loss in the protected ear than those who received the single daily dose. As expected, hearing loss at 2 kHz was less than that at 8 and 16 kHz. CONCLUSION: A continuous infusion of STS directly to the MES is better than a single daily dose of STS to the MES in reducing the ototoxicity of CP. SIGNIFICANCE: Any targeted protection, whether by continuous infusion or daily dose, is better than no protection against the sensorineural hearing loss of CP.