Best Virginia
Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2025 Sep 1;158(3):1637-1645. doi: 10.1121/10.0039097.
Reductions in speech audibility are more detrimental in the presence of competing sounds, where there is little redundant speech information, than in quiet. Indeed, previous results suggest that insufficient audibility of "speech glimpses" may partly explain the poor performance of listeners with hearing loss in multitalker mixtures. An implication of those results is that restoring audibility across the spectrum may be especially critical in such situations. The current study investigated whether current hearing-aid amplification strategies adequately restore the audibility of speech glimpses. Ideal time-frequency segregation was used to isolate target speech glimpses from unaided and aided speech mixtures. Intelligibility was then measured for the isolated glimpses and for the original mixtures. Participants were young adults with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, and individualized non-linear amplification with fast-acting compression was provided using the open Master Hearing Aid. Results showed that amplification generally improved the audibility and intelligibility of the target speech glimpses, but the benefit was diminished in the mixture, suggesting that there were counteracting effects. This approach may provide a useful way to unpack positive and negative effects of hearing-aid processing in multitalker mixtures.
在存在竞争声音（其中几乎没有冗余语音信息）的情况下，语音可听度的降低比在安静环境中更有害。事实上，先前的结果表明，“语音片段”的可听度不足可能部分解释了听力损失患者在多说话者混合环境中的不佳表现。这些结果的一个含义是，在这种情况下，恢复整个频谱的可听度可能尤为关键。当前的研究调查了当前的助听器放大策略是否能充分恢复语音片段的可听度。使用理想的时频分离从未助听和助听后的语音混合中分离出目标语音片段。然后测量分离出的片段和原始混合语音的可懂度。参与者是患有双侧感音神经性听力损失的年轻成年人，使用开放式Master助听器提供具有快速作用压缩的个性化非线性放大。结果表明，放大通常改善了目标语音片段的可听度和可懂度，但在混合环境中这种益处有所减少，这表明存在抵消作用。这种方法可能为剖析助听器处理在多说话者混合环境中的正负效应提供一种有用的方式。
