Shen Jing, Heller Murray Elizabeth
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Ear Hear. 2025;46(2):474-482. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001599. Epub 2024 Nov 4.
Although breathy vocal quality and hearing loss are both prevalent age-related changes, their combined impact on speech communication is poorly understood. This study investigated whether breathy vocal quality affected speech perception and listening effort by older listeners. Furthermore, the study examined how this effect was modulated by the adverse listening environment of background noise and the listener's level of hearing loss.
Nineteen older adults participated in the study. Their hearing ranged from near-normal to mild-moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Participants heard speech material of low-context sentences, with stimuli resynthesized to simulate original, mild-moderately breathy, and severely breathy conditions. Speech intelligibility was measured using a speech recognition in noise paradigm, with pupillometry data collected simultaneously to measure listening effort.
Simulated severely breathy vocal quality was found to reduce intelligibility and increase listening effort. Breathiness and background noise level independently modulated listening effort. The impact of hearing loss was not observed in this dataset, which can be due to the use of individualized signal to noise ratios and a small sample size.
Results from this study demonstrate the challenges of listening to speech with a breathy vocal quality. Theoretically, the findings highlight the importance of periodicity cues in speech perception in noise by older listeners. Breathy voice could be challenging to separate from the noise when the noise also lacks periodicity. Clinically, it suggests the need to address both listener- and talker-related factors in speech communication by older adults.
尽管呼吸音质和听力损失都是常见的与年龄相关的变化，但它们对言语交流的综合影响却鲜为人知。本研究调查了呼吸音质是否会影响老年听众的言语感知和听力努力。此外，该研究还考察了这种影响如何受到背景噪声的不利聆听环境和听众听力损失程度的调节。
19名老年人参与了该研究。他们的听力范围从接近正常到轻度至中度感音神经性听力损失。参与者听取了低语境句子的语音材料，刺激音被重新合成以模拟原始、轻度至中度呼吸音质和重度呼吸音质的情况。使用噪声中的语音识别范式测量言语可懂度，同时收集瞳孔测量数据以测量听力努力。
发现模拟的重度呼吸音质会降低可懂度并增加听力努力。呼吸音质和背景噪声水平独立调节听力努力。在该数据集中未观察到听力损失的影响，这可能是由于使用了个体化的信噪比和样本量较小。
本研究结果表明了聆听具有呼吸音质的言语所面临 的挑战。从理论上讲，这些发现突出了周期性线索在老年听众噪声中言语感知中的重要性。当噪声也缺乏周期性时，呼吸音质的声音可能难以与噪声区分开来。在临床上，这表明需要解决老年人言语交流中与听众和说话者相关的因素。
