Identification of transition frequency and duration changes in synthetic speech as a function of hearing status and age

Abstract

The identification of synthetic speech syllables which incorporated identical formant transition frequency changes in three different transition duration contexts (40, 120, 240 ms) or which incorporated identical transition duration changes in three different transition frequency contexts (where F2 locus was 800, 1520, or 2120 Hz) was assessed for young and old normal‐hearing and sensorineurally hearing‐impaired listeners. The older listeners, independent of hearing‐impairment, demonstrated a significant decrement in identification performance for all experimental continua. The hearing‐impaired listeners, independent of age, demonstrated a significant decrement in identification performance for most, but not all, experimental continua. Specifically, identification of syllables incorporating frequency changes was not significantly affected in the 240‐ms duration context but significantly poorer in the contexts utilizing the two shorter transition durations. Furthermore, identification of syllables incorporating duration changes was not significantly affected in the 800‐Hz transition locus context but significantly poorer in the higher frequency contexts.