Effects of transparent and opaque facemasks on audiovisual speech perception

Abstract

Face masks reduce the spread of COVID-19 but hinder speech perception. Masks reduce visual feedback, filter the acoustic signal, and affect speech movements. Older adults, particularly those with aging related hearing loss, are impacted by the reduction of auditory and visual cues when communicating with masks. Face masks also pose a challenge to medical professionals when relaying important information to patients. Transparent masks with a clear window across the mouth may facilitate masked communication; however it is unknown if visual feedback through the transparent mask facilitates speech perception given the reduced acoustic signal. We examined speech intelligibility through masks using unpredictable sentences, recorded by two adults, that limit guessing words based on context. We presented sentences mixed with multitalker babble in four conditions (no mask, disposable, transparent, and N95 mask). Listeners, recruited online, typed what they heard. Percent words correct was scored by a text-matching algorithm, allowing for morphological errors and homonyms. We will determine the visual benefit of the transparent masks over the other masked conditions. Results of this study may increase awareness among healthcare providers about how different mask types can affect communication and empower individuals to decide which masks to wear in different communicative contexts.