Abstract
It is postulated that the amount of information carried by speech can be altered by speech modifications which can be perceived aurally. Therefore, amplitude compression might increase intelligibility if a reduction of level differences between strong and weak speech sound is perceivable. Difference limen for attack (TA) and release (TR) times of compression for various compression ratios (CR's) based on a quality change was determined by the adjustment or ABX methods. A 1.7-s-long utterance with approximately constant maximal rms levels of words was submitted to wide-band compression. Masking noise added after compression at −10 dB (re speech) equalized the noise background for various conditions. The smaller the CR or the TA, the shorter the TR had to be to provide a perceptible change in quality; e.g., experienced normally hearing subjects needed TR equal to or smaller than 420 and 250 ms to discriminate a quality change when CR = 5 and TA equal to 10 and 3 ms, respectively, from linear amplification. Naive normally hearing listeners needed a much shorter TR (between 30 and 40 ms for the same conditions). Testing of hearing impaired listeners is presently in progress. [Work supported by NIH NS 12946.]
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