使用美式英语和汉语普通话的HINT及AzBio句子进行句子识别的跨语言比较

A Cross-Language Comparison of Sentence Recognition Using American English and Mandarin Chinese HINT and AzBio Sentences.

作者信息

Xu Li, Xi Xin, Patton Alexa, Wang Xianhui, Qi Beier, Johnson Lauren

机构信息

Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA.

These authors are co-first authors who have contributed equally to this work.

出版信息

Ear Hear. 2021 Mar/Apr;42(2):405-413. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000938.

DOI:10.1097/AUD.0000000000000938

PMID:32826510

Abstract

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to perform a cross-language comparison of two commonly used sentence-recognition materials (i.e., Hearing in Noise Test [HINT] and AzBio) in American English (AE) and Mandarin Chinese (MC).

DESIGNS

Sixty normal-hearing, native English-speaking and 60 normal-hearing, native Chinese-speaking young adults were recruited to participate in three experiments. In each experiment, the subjects were tested in their native language. In experiments I and II, noise and tone vocoders were used to process the HINT and AzBio sentences, respectively. The number of channels varied from 1 to 9, with an envelope cutoff frequency of 160 Hz. In experiment III, the AE AzBio and the MC HINT sentences were tested in speech-shaped noise at various signal to noise ratios (i.e., -20, -15, -10, -5, and 0 dB). The performance-intensity functions of sentence recognition using the two sets of sentence materials were compared.

RESULTS

Results of experiments I and II using vocoder processing indicated that the AE and MC versions of HINT and AzBio sentences differed in level of difficulty. The AE version yielded higher recognition performance than the MC version for both HINT and AzBio sentences. The type of vocoder processing (i.e., tone and noise vocoders) produced little differences in sentence-recognition performance in both languages. Incidentally, the AE AzBio sentences and the MC HINT sentences had similar recognition performance under vocoder processing. Such similarity was further confirmed under noise conditions in experiment III, where the performance-intensity functions of the two sets of sentences were closely matched.

CONCLUSIONS

The HINT and AzBio sentence materials developed in AE and MC differ in level of difficulty. The AE AzBio and the MC HINT sentence materials are similar in level of difficulty. In cross-language comparative research, the MC HINT and the AE AzBio sentences should be chosen for the respective language as the target sentence-recognition test materials.

摘要

目的

本研究旨在对两种常用的句子识别材料（即噪声中的听力测试[HINT]和AzBio）在美国英语（AE）和汉语普通话（MC）中进行跨语言比较。

设计

招募了60名听力正常的以英语为母语的年轻人和60名听力正常的以汉语为母语的年轻人参与三项实验。在每个实验中，受试者用其母语进行测试。在实验I和II中，分别使用噪声和声码器处理HINT和AzBio句子。通道数量从1到9不等，包络截止频率为160 Hz。在实验III中，AE版AzBio和MC版HINT句子在不同信噪比（即-20、-15、-10、-5和0 dB）的言语噪声中进行测试。比较了使用两组句子材料的句子识别性能-强度函数。

结果

使用声码器处理的实验I和II的结果表明，HINT和AzBio句子的AE版和MC版在难度水平上存在差异。对于HINT和AzBio句子，AE版的识别性能均高于MC版。声码器处理类型（即音调和声码器）在两种语言的句子识别性能上产生的差异很小。顺便说一下，AE版AzBio句子和MC版HINT句子在声码器处理下具有相似的识别性能。在实验III的噪声条件下，这种相似性得到了进一步证实，其中两组句子的性能-强度函数紧密匹配。