Hearing loss by week of gestation and categories of birth weight in very preterm neonates: A population-based study

User evaluation of a communication system that automatically generates captions to improve telephone communication

This study examined the subjective benefit obtained from automatically generated captions during telephone-speech comprehension in the presence of babble noise. Short stories were presented by telephone either with or without captions that were generated offline by an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. To simulate online ASR, the word...

Binaural intelligibility prediction based on the speech transmission index

Although the speech transmission index STI is a well-accepted and standardized method for objective prediction of speech intelligibility in a wide range of environments and applications, it is essentially a monaural model. Advantages of binaural hearing in speech intelligibility are disregarded. In specific conditions, this leads to considerable...

The benefit obtained from visually displayed text from an automatic speech recognizer during listening to speech presented in noise

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit that listeners obtain from visually presented output from an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system during listening to speech in noise. DESIGN: Auditory-alone and audiovisual speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured. The SRT is defined as the speech-to-noise ratio at which...

The absence of an auditory-visual attentional blink is not due to echoic memory

The second of two targets is often missed when presented shortly after the first target—a phenomenon referred to as the attentional blink (AB). Whereas the AB is a robust phenomenon within sensory modalities, the evidence for cross-modal ABs is rather mixed. Here, we test the possibility that the absence of an auditory–visual AB for visual...

Auditory distance perception in humans: A summary of past and present research

Although auditory distance perception is a critical component of spatial hearing, it has received substantially less scienti.c attention than the directional aspects of auditory localization. Here we summarize current knowledge on auditory distance perception, with special emphasis on recent research results. The summary will be structured...

Het minimum perceptibele

Using the Speech Transmission Index for predicting non-native speech intelligibility

While the Speech Transmission Index ~STI! is widely applied for prediction of speech intelligibility in room acoustics and telecommunication engineering, it is unclear how to interpret STI values when non-native talkers or listeners are involved. Based on subjectively measured psychometric functions for sentence intelligibility in noise, for...

Noise sensitivity and reactions to noise and other environmental conditions

This article integrates findings from the literature and new results regarding noise sensitivity. The new results are based on analyses of 28 combined datasets (N=23 038), and separate analyses of a large aircraft noise study (N=10939). Three topics regarding noise sensitivity are discussed, namely, its relationship with noise exposure, its...

On the assessment of shooting sounds: Loudness-level weightings versus A- and C-weighted sound exposure levels (L)

As an alternative to the A-weighted sound exposure level (ASEL) Schomer et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2390-2397 (2001)] used the equal-loudness level contours as a dynamic filter to determine the loudness-level-weighted sound exposure level (LLSEL). From their analyses they concluded that the LLSEL better orders and assesses traffic and...

Evaluation of context effects in sentence recognition

It was investigated whether the model for context effects, developed earlier by Bronkhorst et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 93, 499-509 (1993)], can be applied to results of sentence tests, used for the evaluation of speech recognition. Data for two German sentence tests, that differed with respect to their semantic content, were analyzed. They had...

Actieve geluidsonderdrukking in gehoorbeschermers

Actieve geluidsreductie (ANR) is, mits goed toegepast, een waardevolle aanvulling op passieve gehoorbescherming.

Sound localization in the presence of one or two distracters

Localizing a target sound can be a challenge when one or more distracter sounds are present at the same time. This study measured the effect of distracter position on target localization for one distracter (17 positions) and two distracters (21 combinations of 17 positions). Listeners were instructed to point to the apparent position of a train...

Noise exposure and public health

Exposure to noise constitutes a health risk. There is sufficient scientific evidence that noise exposure can induce hearing impairment, hypertension and ischemic heart disease, annoyance, sleep disturbance, and decreased school performance. For other effects such as changes in the immune system and birth defects, the evidence is limited. Most...

A clinical test for the assessment of binaural speech perception in noise

The present paper describes a clinical test for the assessment of speech perception in noise. The test was designed to separate the effects of several relevant monaural and binaural cues. Results show that the performance of individual hearing-impaired listeners deviates significantly from normal for at least 2 of the following aspects: (1)...