Male-female differences in speaker intelligibility; normal and hearing-impaired listeners

Abstract

Five groups of ten listeners each (normal-hearing, conductively impaired, flat, moderately sloping-, and severely sloping sensorineural impairments) were presented with recordings of the CHABA sentences. The hearing-impaired groups were further subdivided into five male and five female listeners. A second nonindependent subdivision was that of age (five above and five below 50 years). Five types of background noise were used; high-pass, low-pass, white, male-spectrum and female-spectrum shape. The ratio of speech peaks to rms noise level was set at 0 dB for each list. Significant differences in intelligibility were obtained between listener groups, noise type, listener age, and talker gender. The female talkers were more intelligible than the male [for a common speech-to-noise ratio]. Younger listeners scored higher than older. As expected, intelligibility scores decreased with increase in degree of impairment, but the relative masking of the different noises varied between listener groups and speaker gender.