Handbook of Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing-impaired Listeners. International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR), T. Dau, J. M. Buchholz, J. M. Harte and T. U. Christiansen, Eds., Holbæk: Centertryk A/S, pp. 383-387, 2007
Effect of talker variability on speech perception by elderly people in reverberation
N. Hodoshima and T. Arai
Abstract: It has been reported that elderly people have much more difficulty in perceiving speech in reverberation compared to young people with normal hearing. This study investigated how characteristics of talker’s speech affected speech perception of elderly people in reverberation to find speech materials that are easier to hear for elderly people in reverberation. In order to simulate various characteristics of talker’s speech, sentences were produced by people who have received speech training or not with different speaking rates and styles. Stimuli were prepared by convolving the sentences with impulse responses from rooms, and nonsense word identification test was carried out with Japanese elderly people in a diotic listening condition. The results of this study would provide some characteristics of speech materials that are robust to reverberation for elderly people, and those characteristics would be particularly useful in the situation where perfect speech communication is required such as listening to a speech alarm.