Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle.
Department of Speech-Language Pathology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ.
Am J Speech Lang Pathol. 2021 Jun 18;30(3S):1329-1342. doi: 10.1044/2020_AJSLP-20-00149. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
Purpose This study (a) examined the effect of different levels of background noise on speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort in speakers with impaired and intact speech following treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) and (b) determined the relative contribution of speech intelligibility, speaker group, and background noise to a measure of perceived listening effort. Method Ten speakers diagnosed with nasal, oral, or oropharyngeal HNC provided audio recordings of six sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test. All speakers were 100% intelligible in quiet: Five speakers with HNC exhibited mild speech imprecisions (speech impairment group), and five speakers with HNC demonstrated intact speech (HNC control group). Speech recordings were presented to 30 inexperienced listeners, who transcribed the sentences and rated perceived listening effort in quiet and two levels (+7 and +5 dB SNR) of background noise. Results Significant Group × Noise interactions were found for speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort. While no differences in speech intelligibility were found between the speaker groups in quiet, the results showed that, as the signal-to-noise ratio decreased, speakers with intact speech (HNC control) performed significantly better (greater intelligibility, less perceived listening effort) than those with speech imprecisions in the two noise conditions. Perceived listening effort was also shown to be associated with decreased speech intelligibility, imprecise speech, and increased background noise. Conclusions Speakers with HNC who are 100% intelligible in quiet but who exhibit some degree of imprecise speech are particularly vulnerable to the effects of increased background noise in comparison to those with intact speech. Results have implications for speech evaluations, counseling, and rehabilitation.
目的 本研究（a）考察了不同背景噪声水平对接受头颈部癌症（HNC）治疗后言语可懂度和感知聆听努力度受损和完好的言语者的言语可懂度和感知聆听努力度的影响，（b）确定言语可懂度、言语者组别和背景噪声对感知聆听努力度测量的相对贡献。 方法 10 名被诊断为鼻、口或口咽 HNC 的言语者提供了来自句子可懂度测试的 6 个句子的音频记录。所有言语者在安静环境下的可懂度均为 100%：5 名 HNC 言语者表现出轻度言语不清晰（言语障碍组），5 名 HNC 言语者表现出完好的言语（HNC 对照组）。将言语记录呈现给 30 名无经验的听众，他们在安静和两个背景噪声水平（+7 和 +5 dB SNR）下转录句子并对感知聆听努力度进行评分。 结果 在言语可懂度和感知聆听努力度方面发现了显著的组×噪声交互作用。尽管在安静环境下，两组言语者的言语可懂度无差异，但结果表明，随着信噪比降低，言语者的言语清晰度越好（可懂度越高，感知聆听努力度越低），而在两种噪声条件下，言语不清晰的言语者的表现越差。感知聆听努力度也与言语可懂度降低、不清晰言语和背景噪声增加有关。 结论 与言语完好的 HNC 言语者相比，在安静环境下 100%可懂但表现出一定程度不清晰言语的 HNC 言语者，在背景噪声增加时尤其容易受到影响。结果对言语评估、咨询和康复具有重要意义。
