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May 1981

Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. 31-S125

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back to top Session BBB. Speech Communication IX: Perception III: Developmental, Language‐ and Hearing‐Impaired, and Vibrotactile
Contributed Papers
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Developmental differences in detection and identification of CV syllables (A)

Cheryl S. Longinotti, Lois L. Elliott, and Dianne Meyer

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S120-S120 (1981); (1 page)

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This study investigated the detection and identification of synthesized CV syllables [bɑ, dɑ, gɑ] by 6‐ and 10‐year‐old children and adults. Detection thresholds were measured using a three‐interval forced‐choice, adaptive procedure, with trial‐by‐trial feedback. Syllable identification was measured using a three‐alternative forced‐choice task, also with trial‐by‐trial feedback. Performance‐intensity functions for the syllable identification data were fit with a logistic function to determine slope and identification thresholds. Detection thresholds and identification thresholds were significantly poorer for 6‐year olds than for 10‐year olds and adults; performance‐intensity function slopes were significantly more shallow for 6‐year olds than for the other groups. The effect of syllable was significant for identification threshold and slope, but not for detection threshold. These results extend previous demonstrations of developmental differences in pure tone sensitivity and word identification to CV syllables. [Work supported, in part, by NSF.]
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The perception of intervocalic /t/ and /d/: A comparison of child and adult listeners (A)

John A. Norwood

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S120-S121 (1981); (2 pages)

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Child and adult listeners were presented with two sets of stimuli to be judged as either petal or pedal. One set was constructed by editing a naturally produced token of petal, and the other, a token of pedal. Construction of each set involved systematically varying three acoustic cues important for the voicing distinction between intervocalic stops: (1) preceding vowel duration, (2) stop closure duration, (3) voice onset time. Besides the silent closures used in each set, some tokens with glottal buzz were used in the pedal set. Preliminary analysis shows that, for silent closures, VOT had the strongest effect on the subjects' responses, except for the adults' responses to stimuli created from petal. There closure duration had a slightly greater influence. Closure duration otherwise had a strong effect just secondary to VOT. The effect of preceding vowel length, though observable, was weak. Stimuli with buzz‐filled closures were heard almost entirely as pedal, regardless of other cue values. Adults and children showed similar overall patterns of responses, but with the adults being more sensitive to changes in vowel and closure duration.
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Effects of two sources of interference in speeded classification for normal and language disordered children (A)

Dianne H. Greyerbiehl, Grace H. Yeni‐Komshian, and Richard H. Meltzer

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S121-S121 (1981); (1 page)

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Two speeded classification tasks were conducted with 32 normal and language disordered children, 7–9 years of age. In the first task, the control conditions were (ba vs da) and (ab vs ad); and the orthogonal condition was (ba,ab vs da,ad). In this task subjects tracked the phonemes, /b/ and /d/, while ignoring the syllable type, CV and VC. In the second task, the control conditions were (ba vs ab) and (da vs ad); and the orthogonal condition was (ba,da vs ab,ad). In this task they tracked the syllable type while ignoring the phonemes. Within each task the stimuli were presented in quiet or in noise, and a 40‐ or 80‐ms transition rate. Results indicate no group differences on the control tasks. In the orthogonal conditions, the normals were better than the language delayed. In general the task that required the subjects to track the phoneme and ignore the syllable was easier than the task in which they tracked the syllable and ignored the phoneme. The effects of background noise and formant transition rate were significant in the phoneme tracking task but not in the syllable tracking task.
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The effect of compression limiting on the speech intelligibility of sensorineural hearing impaired listeners (A)

Diane K. Bustamante, Steven DeGennaro, Louis D. Braida, and Nathaniel I. Durlach

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S121-S121 (1981); (1 page)

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The purpose of this study was the evaluation of multiband compression limiting designed to protect hearing‐impaired listeners from high‐level speech and environmental sounds. The relative performance of two linear and four compression‐limiting systems has been measured for two subjects with flat sensorineural losses. The test materials, consisting of nonsense CVC syllables spoken by male and female speakers, were presented over a 30‐dB range of input levels. The subjects chose an overall listening level consistent with both maximum intelligibility over the range of input levels and long‐term listening comfort. Preliminary results indicate that both higher average presentation levels and increased speech intelligibility scores are associated with compression limiting relative to linear amplification. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Perception of filtered speech by hearing‐impaired listeners and by normal‐hearing listeners with simulated hearing loss (A)

P. Milner, L. D. Braida, and N. I. Durlach

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S121-S121 (1981); (1 page)

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Six subjects have participated in a study to determine the relationship between actual and predicted performance‐intensity functions for nine conditions of high‐pass, low‐pass, and band‐pass filtered speech. Three subjects have bilateral sensorineural hearing loss of varying degrees and etiology, one subject has a unilateral sensorineural loss and two subjects have normal hearing. All subjects were trained and tested on 72 consonant‐vowel syllables recorded by two male and two female talkers. Each of the nine filtered conditions (as well as the unfiltered speech) was tested at a minimum of five different levels. Hearing loss in the normal‐hearing subjects was simulated by using spectrally shaped wide‐band noise to create masked thresholds similar to those of the hearing‐impaired subjects. Measured intelligibility scores are compared with the predictions of Articulation Theory using modifications developed by Dugal, Braida, and Durlach [in Acoustical Factors Affecting Hearing Aid Performance and Measurement, edited by Studebaker and Hochberg, (1980)] [Research supported by NIH.]
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Burst, murmur, vowel duration, and transition cues in the identification of final stop voicing by hearing‐impaired and normal‐hearing listeners (A)

S. Revoile, J. M. Pickett, Lisa Holden, and David Talkin

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S121-S121 (1981); (1 page)

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The effects on voicing identification of progressive neutralization of the voicing cues was examined further (99th ASA meeting, Paper GG6). Cue modifications were digital deletions or iterations performed on ten voicing‐cognate pairs of token syllables, spoken in a randomized list of 10× the set: dap, dak, dat, dab, dag, dad. The cue modifications consisted progressively of neutralized vowel durations, equalized closure duration, burst deletion, murmur deletion, and transition deletion. For voiced‐consonant syllables, about half of the 25 hearing‐impaired were sensitive to vowel duration and the presence of transitions; some of these listeners and others were sensitive to the presence of the burst and/or murmur. For syllables with unvoiced consonants, vowel duration and the presence of release burst affected identification for about half of the hearing impaired. Among the remaining impaired listeners, sensitivity varied unsystematically as a function of burst presence and/or transition deletion. Normal listeners appeared generally to make use of the transition cues more than did the hearing impaired. [Work supported in part by the U. S. Public Health Service.]
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A quantitative study of ambiguity in lipreading (A)

Maria Domenica Di Benedetto, Francis Destombes, and Jean‐Pierre Tubach

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S121-S122 (1981); (2 pages)

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Deaf people find it difficult to “read speech” from lips since many sounds such as /p, b, m/ or /t, d, n/ look alike on the lips (“confusion groups”). By performing statistical computations on a large corpus of spoken French (95 000 phonemes), based upon the frequencies of phonemes, diphones, and triphones, it is possible to assert the relative importance of the various confusion groups. We use information theory (conditional entropy, redundancy) to evaluate the impact of confusions on the spoken message information contents. Identification rates of nonsense CV and VC syllables are also considered. A classification of confusion groups according to the message degradation they provoke is proposed and is compared to the current state of the art in automatic phoneme recognition. It appears that a research effort is needed to improve automatic recognition of “difficult” phonemes (occlusives and nasals mainly). These results could prove useful in our research to design an automatic device which would provide visual “cues” to help the deaf to disambiguate the confusion groups.
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Effects of consonantal context on vowel lipreading (A)

Allen A. Montgomery

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S122-S122 (1981); (1 page)

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In this study physical measurements of talkers' lips during production of CVC monosyllables were correlated with perceptual confusions among the utterances during lipreading. Five talkers were videotaped producing a large set of CVC's with /f,v,w,r,p,b,t,d,h,g/ as consonants and /i,ɪ,a,,u/ as vowels. Tracings were made from the tape and intelligibility of lipreading was determined by normal and hearing‐impaired viewers. It was found that in contexts with minimal labial coarticulation the variance in vowel confusions was almost completely explained by static measurements of lip height and width at the point of maximal vowel constriction. In bilabial, rounded, and labio‐dental contexts, however, it was found that (a) overall intelligibility of the vowel was reduced, (b) lip height and width predicted a high percentage of the perceptual confusions among the vowels, but vowel duration and lip trajectory improved the prediction in some cases, and (c) considerable variation existed among talkers and the intelligibility of individual talkers could be predicted by a small set of measurements of the lips during vowel production. [Work supported by Department of Clinical Investigation, WRAMC.]
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Speech perception by hearing‐impaired listeners: Effects of speech maskers (A)

Sandra Gordon‐Salant and Frederic L. Wightman

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S122-S122 (1981); (1 page)

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The aim of this study was to examine the masking effects of brief segments of speech with both normally hearing and hearing‐impaired listeners. The target stimuli were 11 CV's from each of two continua, (be‐de‐ge) and (pe‐te‐ke). Stimuli on a continum differed only in F2 starting frequency. Maskers were either one of the four end‐point CV's or one of four brief noise bursts, spectrally matched to the onset spectra of the end‐point CV's. In order to assess the effects of the maskers, judgments of interstimulus similarity were obtained (via a triadic comparison paradigm) from six normal and six hearing‐impaired listeners. The results (in the form of INDSCAL solutions) suggest that the CV maskers were more disruptive than the noise maskers for both normal and hearing‐impaired listeners. In addition, the masking effects were greater for the hearing‐impaired listeners than for the normal listeners in all conditions. Our tentative conclusion is that for both normal and hearing‐impaired listeners, masking by competing speech sounds is determined primarily by the phonetic content of the masker, and less by its spectral content. [Work supported by NIH Grant No. NS12045.]
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Dichotic release from low‐frequency masking in speech recognition by presbycusics (A)

Harriet Kaplan and J. M. Pickett

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S122-S122 (1981); (1 page)

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Speech discrimination in the presence of competing cafeteria and speech babble noise was measured in elderly subjects with bilaterally symmetrical sensorineural hearing losses. All demonstrated at least one central or retrocochlear audiometric sign. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether low‐frequency attenuation, dichotic or diotic presentation of speech in noise would improve speech discrimination in this population. Previous work by Pickett and associates using synthetic formants, had demonstrated release from low‐frequency masking in some younger subjects as a function of these conditions. An as yet unpublished study by Kaplan and Pickett demonstrated similar results in presbycusics. It was hypothesized that comparable release from low‐frequency masking would occur if speech in noise were presented under attenuated low‐frequency, dichotic and diotic conditions. Speech discrimination was measured under earphones with noise and speech in the preferred ears under the following conditions: unaltered monotic, and monotic with attenuation of the band below 1000 Hz by 5, 10, and 15 dB; in addition, dichotic (band split) and diotic. For the dichotic condition, the band was split at 1000 Hz with filter skirts of 55 dB per octave. The high‐pass band was delivered to the preferred ears. Modified Rhyme Test stimuli in open and closed set formats and SPIN Test sentences were used. For the group as a whole, dichotic and diotic conditions were significantly superior (0.05 and 0.01 levels) to unaltered monotic. When subjects were grouped according to degree of loss, the mild, loss group showed greater dichotic‐monotic and diotic‐monotic superiority than the moderate loss group. When subjects were grouped into “SSI Normal” and “SSI Abnormal” categories (two different types of central involvement), based on performance on the Jerger Synthetic Sentence Inventory (SSI) in ipsilateral competing message, there were no significant differences between groups, except for larger dichotic‐monotic differences for the SSI Abnormal group. [Work supported by NINCDS.]
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Changes to speech identification performance with full‐ and partial‐cue synthetic syllables by subjects with age‐related hearing impairment (A)

M. Hannley and E. Dobbins

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S122-S122 (1981); (1 page)

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In a previous presentation before the Society (Hannley, Fall meeting 1980) we noted that aging listeners appear to have impaired frequency resolution of the same magnitude as younger listeners with comparable sensorineural hearing disorder. Such impairment, however, did not account for severely reduced ability to identify place of articulation in two‐formant CV syllables. In this study we investigated the possiblity that reduced performance might be accounted for by the limited external redundancy of partial‐cue speech stimuli presented to impaired auditory systems having limited internal redundancy. Three experiments were conducted. In the first, two‐ and three‐formant consonant‐vowel syllables synthesized with and without release bursts were presented to elderly listeners for identification of place of articulation. In the second experiment the amplitude of the release burst was increased; and in the third experiment F2 and F3 transition duration was increased. The results of the three listening conditions will be related to absolute performance differences, degree of hearing impairment, and evidence of central auditory component in the listeners.
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Aging, frequency selectivity, and the effective use of amplification (A)

M. Hannley and J. Yee

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S122-S123 (1981); (2 pages)

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To examine the hypothesis that impaired frequency selectivity accompanying sensorineural hearing impairment compromises the ability of hearing‐impaired listeners to realize benefits in speech intelligibility from hearing aids, we conducted two experiments. In the first experiment psychophysical tuning curves were generated for elderly listeners whose hearing deficit was related to aging. In the second experiment the same subjects were administered the California Consonant Test (CCT) and PB word intelligibility lists under three listening conditions: (1) no amplification; (2) flat frequency response amplification; and (3) high‐frequency emphasis amplification. The results of the two experiments, their interrelationships, and applicability to hearing aid usage will be discussed.
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Cochlear frequency selectivity and phonetic identification in aging listeners (A)

M. F. Dorman and K. Marton

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S123-S123 (1981); (1 page)

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Frequency selectivity in aging listeners with sensorineural hearing impairment was assessed by measuring the width of PTC's and masking patterns. Phonetic identification was assessed by the shape of identification functions for stimuli from five acoustic continua. Three continua were based on cue duration. In another continuum, the location of a steady‐state F2 was varied relative to a fixed F1. In yet another continuum, the direction of change of F2 was varied. Preliminary results suggest that phonetic identification was poorest for stimuli cued by changes in F2 transitions. Steady‐state formant discrimination was slightly poorer than normal when the F2 of the “different” stimulus was lower in frequency than the “standard” F2 steady state. Phonetic identification was most normal for stimuli cued by changes in stimulus duration. The relationship between these data and frequency selectivity will be discussed.
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Tactile reception of vocal tract shapes: A preliminary study (A)

Robin D. Becker, Matt Fluster, and Moise H. Goldstein, Jr.

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S123-S123 (1981); (1 page)

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Six naive subjects were trained on identification and discrimination of four different vocal tract shapes corresponding to the Russian vowels /i/, /u/, /ɑ/, and /o/ [G. Fant, Acoustic Theory of Speech Production (1960)]. The stimuli were presented to the index finger by means of a 6 × 24 vibrotactile array (Optacon). The long axis of the vibrator represented distance from the glottis, and was divided into eight sections. The area of each section was quantized to one of six possible levels. A “line” display was used so that the number of active vibrators was constant for all stimuli. Overall duration of the presentation was 375 ms, with a steady‐state portion of approximately 200 ms. There were five one‐half hour training sessions per week. The training sessions extended over four to six weeks. The subjects were not prescreened. Only one token per shape was used in the study, so that an upper bound on performance might be established. Three subjects achieved virtually perfect performance by the end of the training period. [Work was supported by NSF.]
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Evaluation of an auditory prosthetic device for the profoundly deaf (A)

P. L. Scilley and B. J. Frost

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S123-S123 (1981); (1 page)

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A vibrotactile auditory prosthetic device was shown to help the deaf: (1) identify environmental sounds, (2) improve speech production, (3) identify English words spoken “live voice,” and (4) receive information complementary to that obtained through lipreading. The device consisted of 16⅓ octave filters, with center frequencies ranging from 200–8000 Hz. The output of each channel was detected and after logarithmic amplification outputs were transmitted to a 16‐channel linear solenoid array placed on the subject′s ventromedial forearm. One artificially deafened subject learned 150 words in 55 h and was able to generalize this learning to unfamiliar speakers. The vast majority of words were identified correctly over 70% of the time. Most words that were initially difficult to discriminate were identified correctly as training time increased. A profoundly deaf 13‐year‐old learned to identify 50 environmental sounds in 12 h using the device. Discrimination of phonemes within lipreading mouth movement groups increased from 39% in the lipreading condition to 88% in the tactile condition. Finally, the intelligibility of the subject′s speech improved 104% when vocalization were made with vibrotactile feedback.
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Vibrotactile perception of suprasegmentals: A comparison of single‐channel and multichannel aids (A)

Cindy A. Beachler and Arlene Earley Carney

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 69, Issue S1, pp. S123-S123 (1981); (1 page)

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The tactile percept of a speech stimulus is determined by the design of the vibrotactile aid used to deliver the stimulus. Single‐channel vibrotactile aids are placed at a single site on the body; the perception of vibration frequency is limited by the resolving power of the skin. Multichannel aids perform a frequency‐to‐place transformation; the value of the input frequency corresponds to a particular place on the body. Two vibrotactile aids, one single‐ and one multichannel, were compared with regard to their ability to transmit three supresegmental aspects of speech: number of syllables, syllabic stress, and rising‐falling intonation. Speech stimuli were chosen both on the basis of lexical syllabification and stress, and according to their envelopes. Subjects were pretested and subsequently trained with either the single‐ or multichannel device to recognize these suprasegmentals. Results indicate that these instruments transmit syllabic number and stress in a substantially different manner. These data are discussed with regard to the applicability of these devices to speech perception and production training for the hearing impaired.
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