Effects of noise competition on monosyllabic and disyllabic word perception in children

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of noise competition on word perception in normal hearing (NH) children and children with cochlear implantation (CI). Methods: To estimate the contribution of noise competition on speech perception, word perception in speech-shaped noise(SSN)and 4-talker babble noise(BN) with Mandarin Lexical Neighborhood Test were performed in 80 NH children and 89 children with CI. Corrected perception percentages were acquired in each group. Results: Both signal to noise ratio (SNR) and noise type influenced the word perception. In NH group, corrected percentages of disyllabic word perception in SSN were 24.2%, 55.9%, 77.1%, 85.1% and 88.9% at -8, -4, 0, 4 and 8 dB SNR, corresponding corrected percentages of monosyllabic word were 13.9%, 39.5%, 60.1%, 68.8% and 80.1%, respectively. In BN noise, corrected percentages of disyllabic word were 2.4%, 24.3%, 55.6%, 74.3% and 86.2%, corresponding monosyllabic word were 2.3%, 20.8%, 47.2%, 61.1% and 74.8%, respectively. In CI group, corrected percentages of dissyllabic word in SSN and BN at 10 dB SNR were 65.5% and 58.1%, respectively. Corresponding monosyllabic word were 49.0% and 41.0%. For SNR=5 dB, corrected percentages of disyllabic word in SSN and BN were 50.0% and 38.1%, corresponding corrected percentages of monosyllabic word were 40.8% and 25.1%, respectively. Analysis indicated that the masking effect were significantly higher in BN compared with SSN. Conclusions: Noise competition influence word perception performance significantly. In specific, the influence of noise on word perception is bigger in children with CI than in NH children. The masking effect is higher in BN noise when compared with SSN.