Effects of various reverberant conditions on speech intelligibility

Abstract

Understanding speech in complex environments is a problem for many hearing impaired listeners, yet the specific characteristics of the listening environment which contribute most to listening difficulties are not well understood. Using virtual stimuli, a large range of conditions are tested on a small group of listeners, both normal and hearing impaired, and speech intelligibility thresholds are obtained. Systematic comparisons of the different conditions are made. The conditions that are varied are the amount of reverberation in the virtual room (ranging from pseudo-anechoic to moderately reverberant), the presence or absence of strong, early reflections such as from a wall and/or tabletop, the direction of the target speech relative to the listener, the distance of the target speech from the listener, and the number and location of competing speech maskers. Care is taken to ensure that the conditions are within the bounds of realistic listening. The validity of the use of virtual stimuli is also explored. [Work supported by NIH DC00100.]