Acoustic correlates of clear speech vowel intelligibility for elderly hearing-impaired listeners.

Abstract

Earlier work on vowels in clear and conversational speech produced by a single talker suggested that the acoustic cues that underlie the superior intelligibility of clear speech for older adults with hearing loss may differ from the cues that young normal-hearing listeners find beneficial. In the present study, clear and conversational vowel stimuli produced by all 41 talkers from the Ferguson Clear Speech Database were presented in a background of 12-talker babble to 40 older adults with mild-to-moderately severe sloping sensorineural hearing loss. Acoustic analyses (vowel duration, steady-state formant frequencies, and measures of dynamic formant movement) were also performed for all stimuli. Vowel intelligibility scores for each talker in each speaking style as well as the magnitude of the clear speech vowel intelligibility effect for each talker will be compared to those obtained from young listeners with normal hearing in a previous study. Regression and other statistical analyses of intelligibility and acoustic data will also be performed to determine the acoustic correlates associated with improved clear speech vowel intelligibility for each listener group. [Work supported by NIHDCD-008886.]