Ferguson Sarah Hargus, Jongman Allard, Sereno Joan A, Keum Kyung Ae
University of Kansas, USA.
J Am Acad Audiol. 2010 Mar;21(3):153-62. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.21.3.3.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the negative effect of noise and other distortions on speech understanding is greater for older adults than for younger adults. Anecdotal evidence suggests that older adults may also be disproportionately negatively affected by foreign accent. While two previous studies found no interaction between foreign accent and listener age, these studies reported no audiometric data and assessed speech understanding in quiet only.
To examine the effects of foreign accent, listening condition, and listener age and hearing status on word identification.
A cross-sectional descriptive study.
Experiments 1 and 2 tested young adults with normal hearing (n = 20 and n = 5, respectively), older adults with essentially normal hearing (n = 20 and n = 10, respectively), and older adults with sloping sensorineural hearing loss (n = 20 and n = 10, respectively).
The intelligibility of English words produced by a native speaker of English and by a native speaker of Spanish was assessed. In Experiment 1, word intelligibility was measured in quiet, in noise (+3 dB signal-to-babble ratio, or SBR), and in a telephone filter condition. In Experiment 2, intelligibility was measured in three additional noise conditions (+6, +9, and +12 dB SBR).
English words produced by the native speaker of English were significantly more intelligible than those produced by the native speaker of Spanish. While the negative effect of noise was significantly greater for older listeners than for younger listeners, the effect of foreign accent was independent of listener age, listener hearing status, and listening condition.
The results suggest that, unlike with other forms of distortion, older adults are not disproportionately affected by foreign accent. This suggests, in turn, that talker-related distortions of the speech signal have a qualitatively different impact on speech perception than distortions that are applied to the signal after it has been produced. The nature of these different types of distortion may be a fruitful area for future investigations of speech understanding in older adults.
大量研究表明，噪声和其他失真对言语理解的负面影响在老年人中比在年轻人中更大。轶事证据表明，老年人可能也会受到外国口音不成比例的负面影响。虽然之前的两项研究没有发现外国口音与听众年龄之间的相互作用，但这些研究没有报告听力数据，且仅在安静环境中评估言语理解。
研究外国口音、聆听条件、听众年龄和听力状况对单词识别的影响。
一项横断面描述性研究。
实验1和实验2测试了听力正常的年轻人（分别为n = 20和n = 5）、听力基本正常的老年人（分别为n = 20和n = 10）以及患有斜坡型感音神经性听力损失的老年人（分别为n = 20和n = 10）。
评估了以英语为母语者和以西班牙语为母语者说出的英语单词的可懂度。在实验1中，在安静环境、噪声环境（信号与混响比为+3 dB，即SBR）和电话滤波器条件下测量单词可懂度。在实验2中，在另外三种噪声条件下（+6、+9和+12 dB SBR）测量可懂度。
以英语为母语者说出的英语单词比以西班牙语为母语者说出的英语单词明显更易懂。虽然噪声对老年听众的负面影响明显大于年轻听众，但外国口音的影响与听众年龄、听众听力状况和聆听条件无关。
结果表明，与其他形式的失真不同，老年人不会受到外国口音不成比例的影响。这进而表明，语音信号中与说话者相关的失真对语音感知的影响在性质上与信号产生后应用于信号的失真不同。这些不同类型失真的性质可能是未来研究老年人言语理解的一个富有成果的领域。
