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Journal of the Acoustical Society of America / Volume 131 / Issue 2 / JASA EXPRESS LETTERS

Effects of low-pass filtering on intelligibility of periodically interrupted speech

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 131, Issue 2, pp. EL87-EL92 (2012); (6 pages)

Pranesh Bhargava and Deniz Başkent

Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands p.bhargava@umcg.nl, d.baskent@umcg.nl

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The combined effect of low-pass filtering (cut-off frequencies between 500 and 3000 Hz) and periodic interruptions (1.5 and 10 Hz) on speech intelligibility was investigated. When combined, intelligibility was lower than each manipulation alone, even in some conditions where there was no effect from a single manipulation (such as the fast interruption rate of 10 Hz). By using young normal-hearing listeners, potential suprathreshold deficits and aging effects that may occur due to hearing impairment were eliminated. Thus, the results imply that reduced audibility of high-frequency speech components may partially explain the reduced intelligibility of interrupted speech in hearing impaired persons.

© 2012 Acoustical Society of America

Acknowledgment

This study was funded by the Rosalind Franklin Fellowship from the University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, and the VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

Article Outline

  1. Introduction
  2. Materials and methods
    1. Test materials
    2. Participants
    3. Experimental conditions
    4. Experimental setup and procedure
  3. Results
  4. Discussion

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

acoustic filters, ageing, hearing, low-pass filters, speech intelligibility

PACS

  • 43.66.Mk

    Temporal and sequential aspects of hearing; auditory grouping in relation to music

  • 43.71.Es

    Vowel and consonant perception; perception of words, sentences, and fluent speech

  • 43.71.Rt

    Sensory mechanisms in speech perception

ARTICLE DATA

History
Received 23 Sep 2011
Accepted 07 Nov 2011
Published online 13 Jan 2012
Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.3670000

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0001-4966 (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef Acoustical Society of America

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Figures (1) Tables (2)

Figures (click on thumbnails to view enlargements)

FIG.1
The mean RAU scores shown as a function of the filter order. The panels show the results for different cut-off frequencies, and within each panel, the results are shown separately for different interruption conditions. The error bars denote the standard deviations.

FIG.1 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

Tables

Table I. Conditions in one block shown with corresponding nine trials. The blocks were repeated for two speakers (male and female), and for four cut-off frequencies (500, 1000, 2000, and 3000 Hz) of the LP filter.

View Table
Table II. Results of the three-way repeated measures ANOVA on the RAU scores. For all main effects and interactions, the p value was highly significant at p < 0.001.

View Table


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