Study of an automated procedure for a Dutch sentence test for the measurement of the speech reception threshold in noise

Abstract

A procedure was developed for the automated measurement of the speech reception threshold in stationary noise (SRTn), which can be administered by the subjects themselves using a computer. The procedure was based on the SRTn test for Dutch developed by Plomp and Mimpen [(1979). "Improving the reliability of testing the speech reception threshold for sentences," Audiology, 18, 43-52]. Because in the automated procedure the responses were entered on a keyboard, the question of how to deal with typing and spelling errors played a key role. At first the possibility of scoring on keywords only was examined. An experiment was conducted in which the adaptive procedure was varied. Results showed that the combination of scoring each keyword separately and a fixed scheme of the adaptation of the signal-to-noise ratio throughout the procedure yields the highest test-retest reliability. Subsequently, the collection and verification of responses using a keyboard were examined. Two different algorithms were developed and evaluated against the traditional task of verbal repetition and response verification by an experimenter. The results indicated a preference for verification by dynamic alignment over a spelling checker approach. In conclusion, the results show that it is possible to automate the test procedure while maintaining sufficient reliability.