Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstrasse 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2010 Nov;267(11):1719-25. doi: 10.1007/s00405-010-1256-5. Epub 2010 Apr 27.
Altered nasality influences speech intelligibility. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) has proved suitable for quantifying speech intelligibility in patients with different degrees of nasal emissions. We investigated the influence of hyponasality on the results of speech recognition before and after nasal surgery using ASR. Speech recordings, nasal peak inspiratory flow and self-perception measurements were carried out in 20 German-speaking patients (8 women, 12 men; aged 38 ± 22 years) who underwent surgery for various nasal and sinus pathologies. The degree of speech intelligibility was quantified as the percentage of correctly recognized words of a standardized word chain by ASR (word recognition rate; WR). WR was measured 1 day before (t1), 1 day after with nasal packings (t2), and 3 months after (t3) surgery; nasal peak flow on t1 and t3. WR was calculated with program for the automatic evaluation of all kinds of speech disorders (PEAKS). WR as a parameter of speech intelligibility was significantly decreased immediately after surgery (t1 vs. t2 p < 0.01) but increased 3 months after surgery (t2 vs. t3 p < 0.01). WR showed no association with age or gender. There was no significant difference between WR at t1 and t3, despite a post-operative increase in nasal peak inspiratory flow measurements. The results show that ASR is capable of quantifying the influence of hyponasality on speech; nasal obstruction leads to significantly reduced WR and nasal peak flow cannot replace evaluation of nasality.
鼻音变化会影响言语清晰度。自动语音识别（ASR）已被证明适合量化不同程度鼻腔气流患者的言语可懂度。我们使用 ASR 研究了低鼻音对鼻手术后言语识别结果的影响。在 20 名接受各种鼻和鼻窦病变手术的讲德语的患者（8 名女性，12 名男性；年龄 38 ± 22 岁）中进行了语音记录、鼻峰吸气流量和自我感知测量。通过 ASR（单词识别率；WR）量化言语清晰度的程度，即标准化单词链中被正确识别的单词的百分比。WR 在手术前 1 天（t1）、鼻腔填塞后 1 天（t2）和术后 3 个月（t3）进行测量；在 t1 和 t3 测量鼻峰流量。WR 使用自动评估各种言语障碍的程序（PEAKS）进行计算。WR 作为言语清晰度的参数，术后即刻明显降低（t1 与 t2 相比，p<0.01），但术后 3 个月增加（t2 与 t3 相比，p<0.01）。WR 与年龄或性别无关。尽管术后鼻峰吸气流量测量增加，但 t1 和 t3 之间的 WR 无显著差异。结果表明，ASR 能够量化低鼻音对言语的影响；鼻阻塞导致 WR 明显降低，而鼻峰流量不能替代鼻音评估。
