Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Audiology and Speech Pathology Center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland 20889, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2021 Dec;150(6):4244. doi: 10.1121/10.0008898.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of wearing various types of personal protective equipment on speech recognition in a real-world, noisy listening environment. Groups of four young, normal-hearing adults participated in a live version of the Modified Rhyme Test in a noisy public cafeteria with and without the use of a non-medical disposable facial mask or combat earplugs in two different modes. Speech recognition, response time, and subjective difficulty were measured per individual. In addition, the signal-to-noise ratio was estimated during the interval when the talker spoke the target word. Results showed that the listeners' speech recognition performance declined not only when the listener wore earplugs, but also when the talker wore earplugs. The measured signal-to-noise ratio significantly decreased when the talker wore earplugs, suggesting that occlusion may have caused the talkers to reduce their voice levels. Results also showed a decline in speech recognition performance when the talker wore a facial mask. Listeners rated all conditions in which talkers and listeners wore personal protective equipment as more difficult than the baseline condition. These data suggest that speech recognition in real-world listening environments can be impaired by personal protective equipment worn by both talkers and listeners.
本研究旨在评估在现实嘈杂的聆听环境中，佩戴各种类型的个人防护装备对言语识别的影响。四组年轻、听力正常的成年人在嘈杂的公共自助餐厅中以现场形式参与了改良押韵测试，参与者分别在佩戴和不佩戴医用一次性口罩或战斗耳塞的情况下，以两种不同模式参与测试。对每位参与者进行了言语识别、反应时间和主观难度的测量。此外，在说话者说出目标词的间隔期间，还估计了信噪比。结果表明，当听者佩戴耳塞时，以及当说话者佩戴耳塞时，听者的言语识别性能都会下降。当说话者佩戴耳塞时，测量到的信噪比显著降低，这表明堵塞可能导致说话者降低了他们的声音水平。结果还表明，当说话者佩戴口罩时，言语识别性能会下降。与基线条件相比，听者认为所有佩戴个人防护装备的说话者和听者的条件都更加困难。这些数据表明，在现实世界的聆听环境中，说话者和听者佩戴的个人防护装备都可能会影响言语识别。
