Stop consonant recognition and audibility in normal and hearing‐loss subjects

Abstract

This study examined the effect of spectral cue audibility on the discrimination of CV stop consonants in normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired adults. Six synthetic speech tokens, each differing only in the initial 40‐ms consonant portion, were presented to subjects in randomized lists. Performance‐intensity functions and relative information transmitted were calculated from the results of a six‐alternative, closed‐set response task, In both normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired subjects, recognition performance as a function of level differed among the six consonants. The first 40 ms of each CV were analyzed via FFT using an exponential window. The resulting spectral array was passed through a sliding‐filter model of the auditory system to account for the proportional bandwidth filtering properties of the ear. This allowed the spectral data to be displayed in comparison to a subject's pure‐tone thresholds. Differences in the amount of predicted audible spectral speech cues resulted in observable differences in the recognition performance of individual consonants.