Consonant Test Research Articles

Threshold Estimation and Speech Perception Under Hearing Loss Simulation: Examination of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator

Purpose: Hearing loss simulation (HLS) has been recommended for clinical teaching and counseling of patients and their families, so that they can experience hearing impairment. However, few validated procedures for simulating hearing loss are available to instructors and practicing clinicians. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator (I-HeLPS) on reducing hearing sensitivity and word recognition to determine its adequacy for educational and clinical use. Method: Thirty-seven young adults with normal hearing completed hearing threshold and word recognition testing under normal and simulated hearing losses. The accuracy of the nominal hearing threshold settings within the I-HeLPS software was assessed with behavioral detection of frequency-modulated pure tones presented in a calibrated sound field, while listeners wore I-HeLPS headphones. The impact of the HLSs on speech perception was measured using the California Consonant Test. Hearing thresholds, word identification accuracy, and sound confusions were compared across listening conditions. Results: Hearing thresholds increased systematically with worse simulated hearing loss. Performance on the California Consonant Test worsened, and the number of phoneme confusions increased with simulated hearing loss severity. Most of the confusions were place confusions with near neighbors and manner confusions increased as a function of increasing severity of simulated hearing loss. Conclusions: The I-HeLPS accurately elevated hearing thresholds with increasing HLS severity and impacted word recognition in a manner consistent with sensorineural hearing loss. The simulations were considered reasonable for educational and clinical purposes. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24520966

Neural Correlates of Individual Differences in Speech-in-Noise Performance in a Large Cohort of Cochlear Implant Users.

Understanding speech-in-noise (SiN) is a complex task that recruits multiple cortical subsystems. Individuals vary in their ability to understand SiN. This cannot be explained by simple peripheral hearing profiles, but recent work by our group ( Kim et al. 2021 , Neuroimage ) highlighted central neural factors underlying the variance in SiN ability in normal hearing (NH) subjects. The present study examined neural predictors of SiN ability in a large cohort of cochlear-implant (CI) users. We recorded electroencephalography in 114 postlingually deafened CI users while they completed the California consonant test: a word-in-noise task. In many subjects, data were also collected on two other commonly used clinical measures of speech perception: a word-in-quiet task (consonant-nucleus-consonant) word and a sentence-in-noise task (AzBio sentences). Neural activity was assessed at a vertex electrode (Cz), which could help maximize eventual generalizability to clinical situations. The N1-P2 complex of event-related potentials (ERPs) at this location were included in multiple linear regression analyses, along with several other demographic and hearing factors as predictors of SiN performance. In general, there was a good agreement between the scores on the three speech perception tasks. ERP amplitudes did not predict AzBio performance, which was predicted by the duration of device use, low-frequency hearing thresholds, and age. However, ERP amplitudes were strong predictors for performance for both word recognition tasks: the California consonant test (which was conducted simultaneously with electroencephalography recording) and the consonant-nucleus-consonant (conducted offline). These correlations held even after accounting for known predictors of performance including residual low-frequency hearing thresholds. In CI-users, better performance was predicted by an increased cortical response to the target word, in contrast to previous reports in normal-hearing subjects in whom speech perception ability was accounted for by the ability to suppress noise. These data indicate a neurophysiological correlate of SiN performance, thereby revealing a richer profile of an individual's hearing performance than shown by psychoacoustic measures alone. These results also highlight important differences between sentence and word recognition measures of performance and suggest that individual differences in these measures may be underwritten by different mechanisms. Finally, the contrast with prior reports of NH listeners in the same task suggests CI-users performance may be explained by a different weighting of neural processes than NH listeners.

Investigation of the Appropriate Reverberation Time in Learning Spaces for Elderly People Using Speech Intelligibility Tests

The Republic of Korea is currently an aging society, and it will enter an ultra-aging society in 2025. This study aimed to investigate the undesignated appropriate reverberation time of learning spaces for elderly people in Korea. For this purpose, a virtual sound field was created, and the anechoic sounds were convoluted with the virtual sound field to control the reverberation time via absorption rate adjustments. Using a virtual sound field, auralized materials were made which have five different conditions with a reverberation time ranging from 0.4 s to 1.2 s. Speech intelligibility tests were conducted in both elderly and young people using headphones. Consonant–Vowel–Consonant (CVC) tests were undertaken. Preliminary experiments were performed to adjust the difficulty levels of speech intelligibility via normal young adults. The test order was nonsequential, and the sound output level was 60 dB(A). As a result, the test scores were found to decrease with an increase in the reverberation time. In addition, it was revealed that the test scores fell by 32.4% compared with the scores of normal adults under the same reverberation conditions. When the reverberation time was longer than 0.8 s, the test score was reduced by up to 13.3%; therefore, learning spaces for elderly people may require reverberation times shorter than 0.8 s. If the proposed reverberation time were applied to learning spaces for the elderly, it is believed that it could provide an appropriate sound environment for the elderly.

Development of Phoneme Perception Test for School-Aged Children

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to develop lists of phoneme perception tests for school-aged children.Methods: The 127 initial and 94 final consonant test items were modified by the difficulty level (reduced the number for the multiple-choice and controlled familiarity of target words and foil words). The validity of the results for normal hearing children was evaluated. Through discussions by experts in various fields, the target word list was revised. Words with a low percentage (<90%) of correct answers, vowel-consonant in an initial consonant test item, and consonant-vowel (CV) in final consonant item were eliminated and produced the last revised consonant perception test item for school-aged children.Results: The consonant test item consisted of three multiple-choice words type of consonant-vowel-consonant or CV. The 50 initial and 25 final consonant perception test items included the high degree of familiarity, corresponding frequency of phonemes for daily life speech sounds of children.Conclusion: To analyze the phoneme perception ability of school-age children by listening and to evaluate phoneme errors in children with congenital high frequency hearing loss, the results of this study are useful.

A critical look at commonly used stimuli in speech perception experiments

Speech is an attractive stimulus to use for testing the auditory system because it is both highly relevant to everyday life and also replete with acoustic complexity that can test a variety of auditory skills. This presentation shines a light on some commonly used test stimuli or stimulus practices and raises questions about their use, or the interpretations of previous results. For example, the vowel acoustic data published by Hillenbrand et al. (1995) has been adopted as a de facto gold standard even though it was intended as a snapshot of a single dialect at a particular point in time. In that paper, the dynamics of vowel spectra were emphasized, though this aspect of vowels has been often overlooked. In consonant testing, the use of the /a/ context is pervasive, and yet this consonant environment is far from “neutral,” especially in situations where perception of voicing/voice onset time is measured. Perception of consonants and words will be examined with regard to their generalization to perception of longer utterances. Finally, we will examine the balance between convenience and generalizability, including strengths and weaknesses of closed-set speech stimuli.

The Influence of Non-Linear Frequency Compression on the Perception of Speech and Music in Patients with High Frequency Hearing Loss.

Background and ObjectivesNon-linear frequency compression (NLFC) technology compresses and shifts higher frequencies into a lower frequency area that has better residual hearing. Because consonants are uttered in the high-frequency area, NLFC could provide better speech understanding. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical effectiveness of NLFC technology on the perception of speech and music in patients with high-frequency hearing loss.Subjects and MethodsTwelve participants with high-frequency hearing loss were tested in a counter-balanced order, and had two weeks of daily experience with NLFC set on/off prior to testing. Performance was repeatedly evaluated with consonant tests in quiet and noise environments, speech perception in noise, music perception and acceptableness of sound quality rating tasks. Additionally, two questionnaires (the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit and the Korean version of the International Outcome Inventory-Hearing Aids) were administered.ResultsConsonant and speech perception improved with hearing aids (NLFC on/off conditions), but there was no significant difference between NLFC on and off states. Music perception performances revealed no notable difference among unaided and NLFC on and off states. The benefits and satisfaction ratings between NLFC on and off conditions were also not significantly different, based on questionnaires, however great individual variability preferences were noted.ConclusionsSpeech perception as well as music perception both in quiet and noise environments was similar between NLFC on and off states, indicating that real world benefits from NLFC technology may be limited in Korean adult hearing aid users.

The Preliminary Study for Development of Phoneme Perception Test Tool in the School-Aged Children

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a test list for school-aged children that can evaluate consonant perception ability and verify the validity and difficulty.Methods: The test list consisted of 127 initial and 94 final consonant test items with a meaningful one-syllable words and was developed in two types for each difficulty level. To verify the validity of the developed phoneme perception test tool, twenty children with normal hearing were tested for the validity of the results and the contents were verified by experts in various fields.Results: As a result of comparing the rate of correct response according to the type of test item (initial vs. final consonant) and difficulty (easy vs. difficult item), the initial and easy responses were higher than the final and hard item, respectively, so the difficulty level of the test list was appropriate. In addition, there was no statistical difference in the rate of correct answers according to the test speakers, and the content validity analysis for experts verified that the developed test list was appropriate as a phoneme perception test tool for school-age children.Conclusion: The initial and final consonant test items developed through this study consisted of one target word and three examples which are a pair of minimum confrontation with the target word and are heteromorphic test lists consisting of easy and hard types according to the difficulty of the example. It could also be useful for not only the evaluation of the consonant perception ability but also rehabilitation.

The development of Thai monosyllabic word and picture lists applicable to interactive speech audiometry in preschoolers

ABSTRACT Interactive speech audiometry is the assessment of speech comprehension and phonological discrimination through automated means. In order for the performance of such assessments in preschoolers to be successful, the employed list of words and pictures must be easily recognized both linguistically and visually. That is, the children must be able to easily associate the sound they hear with the picture they see with a high degree of certainty. To this end, a Thai monosyllabic word and picture list called NCU-20 (NECTEC-CU-20) is proposed. The word lists for Thai vowel and consonant hearing tests are designed with an awareness of phonetic environments. Regarding Thai vowels, both monophthongs and diphthongs, with all qualities and quantities, are examined. Initial consonants are categorized based on places and manners of articulation. The effectiveness of the list is objectively and subjectively verified through Thai Textbook Corpus, Thai National Corpus, Zipf scores, a listening test of preschoolers with normal hearing, and our proposed ranking systems referred to as Tier-1st, Tier-3/3, and Overall Tier. The final suggested word and picture list comprises 45 items (words) covering 35 vowels and consonant groups in the Thai Language.

An exploration of higher-level language comprehension deficits and factors influencing them following blast TBI in US veterans

ABSTRACTPrimary Objective. The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that might have a negative influence on auditory processing and higher-level language processing in the US veterans of the recent foreign wars (Iraq and Afghanistan).Research Design. Exploratory, cross-sectional, correlational, prospective, cohort-design.Methods and Procedures. The experimental group consisted of 12 US veterans of war (10 males and 2 females) with blast exposure. The control group consisted of six US veterans (5 males and 1 female) without the history of blast exposure. Both groups were matched in mean age. Both groups were tested on Boston Assessment of Traumatic Brain Injury, Consonant Trigrams Test, Symbol Digit Modality Test, Trail Making Test, SCAN-3, CELF-5-Metalinguistics, CASL, and an unpublished test on the processing of sentence prosody.Main Outcomes and Results. Significant group differences in attention, and time-compressed sentence processing were found. For those veterans (in the experimental group) who were not wearing their helmets at the time of blast, additional significant differences were noted with inferencing and auditory figure-ground tasks.Conclusions: Findings support the importance of including speech/language pathologists in all stages of recovery for veterans post-blast exposure.

Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.

Electric and acoustic harmonic integration predicts speech-in-noise performance in hybrid cochlear implant users

BackgroundPitch perception of complex tones relies on place or temporal fine structure-based mechanisms from resolved harmonics and the temporal envelope of unresolved harmonics. Combining this information is essential for speech-in-noise performance, as it allows segregation of a target speaker from background noise. In hybrid cochlear implant (H-CI) users, low frequency acoustic hearing should provide pitch from resolved harmonics while high frequency electric hearing should provide temporal envelope pitch from unresolved harmonics. How the acoustic and electric auditory inputs interact for H-CI users is largely unknown. Harmonicity and inharmonicity are emergent features of sound in which overtones are concordant or discordant with the fundamental frequency. We hypothesized that some H-CI users would be able to integrate acoustic and electric information for complex tone pitch perception, and that this ability would be correlated with speech-in-noise performance. In this study, we used perception of inharmonicity to demonstrate this integration. MethodsFifteen H-CI users with only acoustic hearing below 500 Hz, only electric hearing above 2 kHz, and more than 6 months CI experience, along with eighteen normal hearing (NH) controls, were presented with harmonic and inharmonic sounds. The stimulus was created with a low frequency component, corresponding with the H-CI user's acoustic hearing (fundamental frequency between 125 and 174 Hz), and a high frequency component, corresponding with electric hearing. Subjects were asked to identify the more inharmonic sound, which requires the perceptual integration of the low and high components. Speech-in-noise performance was tested in both groups using the California Consonant Test (CCT), and perception of Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant (CNC) words in quiet and AzBio sentences in noise were tested for the H-CI users. ResultsEight of the H-CI subjects (53%), and all of the NH subjects, scored significantly above chance level for at least one subset of the inharmonicity detection task. Inharmonicity detection ability, but not age or pure tone average, predicted speech scores in a linear model. These results were significantly correlated with speech scores in both quiet and noise for H-CI users, but not with speech in noise performance for NH listeners. Musical experience predicted inharmonicity detection ability, but did not predict speech performance. ConclusionsWe demonstrate integration of acoustic and electric information in H-CI users for complex pitch sensation. The correlation with speech scores in H-CI users might be associated with the ability to segregate a target speaker from background noise using the speaker's fundamental frequency.

Electrical dynamic range is only weakly associated with auditory performance and speech recognition in long-term users of cochlear implants

ObjectiveThe electrical dynamic range (EDR) has been suggested to be related to auditory performance in cochlear implant (CI) users. However, few reports have evaluated postlingual CI users who have used CIs for long periods in comparison with prelingual CI users. Here, we evaluated auditory perception and speech performance in terms of the EDR in long-term CI users. The EDR, and auditory and speech performances, were compared between pre- and post-lingual CI users. MethodsWe enrolled all patients who received CIs from April 2000 to December 2010 at Seoul National University Hospital, and who had ≥5 years of experience with CIs. The EDRs affording subjective responses at the threshold level (T-level) and comfortable level (C-level) were analyzed in terms of their relationships with pure tone audiometry levels, speech evaluation scores, including those on the Phonetically Balanced (PB) Word List test, vowel and consonant tests, a sentence test, and the Korean version of the Central Institute for the Deaf (K-CID) test; we also calculated Category in Auditory Performance (CAP) scores. ResultsWe found no significant difference in the average EDR, CAP, K-CID, PB word, consonant, or vowel scores between pre- and post-lingual CI users. The EDR was weakly associated with the PB word (P = 0.003, r = 0.462) and consonant scores (P = 0.005, r = 0.438). Other speech evaluations, such as the CAP, K-CID, and vowel scores, were not significantly associated with the EDR T-level. We found no association between pure tone thresholds at 0.5, 1, or 2 kHz, and the speech evaluation scores or EDRs of low-, middle-, or high-frequency channels. ConclusionsThe EDR was only weakly associated with speech performance, such as scores on consonant and PB word tests in long-term CI users, irrespective of pre- or post-lingual deafness status.

Empathy, and its relationship with cognitive and emotional functions in alcohol dependency

Background: Empathy can be defined as the ability to understand the other’s thoughts and feelings. It contains both cognitive and emotional components.Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the empathy ability of patients with alcohol dependency in association with cognitive and emotional functions, after acute detoxification and during long-term abstinence.Methods: Thirty-three alcohol dependent inpatients that completed a detoxification process and stayed abstinent throughout the study, and 33 healthy comparison subjects that matched the patients for age, gender, and education level were included in the study. All the participants were administered the Facial Emotion Identification Test (FEIT), Facial Emotion Discrimination Test (FEDT), Trail Making Test (TMT), Digit Span Test (DST), Auditory Consonant Trigram Test (ACT), and Empathy Quotient Scale (EQS). All the tests were repeated after 3 months of abstinence.Results: At the first evaluation conducted after detoxification, patients performed significantly worse than healthy comparisons in almost all tests. At the second evaluation, which was conducted after 3 months of abstinence, the patients improved significantly in all measures, and no significant differences were detected between the patient and comparison groups. There were significant correlations between the test scores and EQS score.Conclusions: Alcohol dependency has deleterious effects on empathy ability, and cognitive and emotional functions. Those impairments can improve with abstinence. Empathy ability has strong relationships with cognitive and emotional functions.

Evaluation of the Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) Test as an Assessment and Screening Instrument for Mild Cognitive Impairment

<p>Objective: Traditional word learning tasks have been criticised for being affected by ceiling effects. The Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) test is a non-word verbal learning task designed to be more difficult and therefore have a lower risk of ceiling effects.</p><p>Method: The current study examines the psychometric properties of the CVC in 404 middle-aged persons and evaluates it as a screening instrument for mild cognitive impairment by comparing it to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Differences between currently depressed and non-depressed participants were also examined.</p><p>Results: CVC characteristics are similar to traditional verbal memory tasks but with reduced likelihood of a ceiling effect. Using the standard cut-off on the MoCA as an indication of mild cognitive impairment, the CVC performed only moderately well in predicting this. Depressed participants scored significantly lower on the CVC compared with non-depressed individuals.</p><p>Conclusions: The CVC may be similar in psychometric properties to the traditional word learning tests but with a higher ceiling. Scores are lower in depression.</p>

Dichotic listening performance in children with dyslexia

The present study aimed to compare the dichotic listening task in children with dyslexia and typically developing children using dichotic consonant vowel test. Twenty children in the age range of 10 to 12 years were taken in the present study. Ten children with dyslexia were served as experimental group whereas another ten age–matched typically developing children were considered as control group. The results revealed that dichotic consonant vowel scores were significantly reduced in children with dyslexia compared to typically developing children for single correct score of right and left ear as well as double correct scores at 0.05 levels of significance. Further, it was also observed that children with dyslexia showed left ear advantage instead of right ear advantage as seen in typically developing children. Hence, it is concluded that children with dyslexia performed poorly in dichotic listening task and direction of ear advantage was also different compared to typically developing children.

Executive functions and memory in autogenous and reactive subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder patients

There are concurrently with different results of studies about cognitive functions of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), impairment in non-verbal memory and executive functioning in OCD, has shown consistent results in several studies. In this study, 62 OCD patients and 40 healthy controls were participated. Firstly, cognitive functions of OCD group and healthy control group were compared in terms of scores in Stroop Test, Wisconsin Cart Sorting Test (WCST), Auditory Consonant Trigram Test (ACTT), Controlled Word Association Test (CWAT), Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Digit Span Test (DST). And then, two patient groups of OCD patients (patients with autogenous obsessions and patients with reactive obsessions) were compared in terms of the scores of same tests, with a hypothesis that claims, cognitive functions of patients with autogenous obsessions, who shown schizotypal personality features and thought disorder in higher ratio, will show more impairment than cognitive functions of patients with reactive obsessions. Significant impairment was found in OCD patients in terms of Stroop test and WCST scores when compared to scores of healthy controls. There was no difference pointed out between cognitive functions of patients with autogenous obsessions and reactive obsessions. Due to limited number of patients with autogenous obsessions in current study, any future research with greater sample size will be helpful to explain the cognitive functions in OCD with autogenous and reactive obsessions.

Relationship of Asymmetrical Dimethylarginine, Nitric Oxide, and Sustained Attention during Attack in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

We investigated the relationship of serum nitric oxide (NO) and asymmetrical dimethylarginine (ADMA) levels with cognitive functioning in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). 41 MDD patients (Beck depression scale scores >16) and 44 controls were included in the study. Rey verbal learning and memory test, auditory consonant trigram test, digit span test, Wisconsin card sorting test, continuous performance task (TOVA), and Stroop test scores were found to be impaired in patients with major depressive disorder when compared to healthy controls. There was no significant difference between patient and control groups in terms of serum NO and ADMA. Serum NO levels were correlated with TOVA test error scores and Stroop test time scores, whereas serum ADMA levels were negatively correlated with TOVA test error scores. Metabolic detriments especially in relation to NO metabolism in frontal cortex and hypothalamus, psychomotor retardation, or loss of motivation may explain these deficits.

Using the Tukey–Kramer omnibus test in the Hayter–Fisher procedure

Using Tukey-Kramer versus the ANOVA F-test as the omnibus test of the Hayter-Fisher procedure for comparing all pairs of normally distributed means, when sample sizes are unequal, is investigated. Simulation results suggest that using Tukey-Kramer leads to as much or more any-pairs power compared to using the F-test for certain patterns of mean differences, and equivalent per-pair and all-pairs power for all cases. Furthermore, using Tukey-Kramer results in a consonant test procedure, where there cannot be disagreement between the results of the omnibus test and the subsequent pairwise tests. The results suggest that when sample sizes are unequal, Tukey-Kramer may be preferred over the F-test as the omnibus test for the Hayter-Fisher procedure.

General solutions to consistency problems in multiple hypothesis testing

Coherence and consonance are the two important concepts to ensure consistent conclusions drawn from multiple tests. Unlike coherence, consonance of a multiple testing procedure (MTP) has not yet received much attention. Although most of the MTPs used in practice are consonant, cases still exist that dissonant tests have to be used due to their unique advantages, for example, the likelihood ratio tests and sum tests. Consonance adjustments are necessary for such tests to avoid difficulty in interpretation. Moreover, in terms of detecting elementary hypotheses, a consonant test procedure is uniformly more powerful than the corresponding dissonant one. In this paper, several general methods using the partitioning principle to construct (strongly) consonant and strongly coherent MTPs are proposed. As a result, any dissonant (but coherent) multiple level α test can be improved by a consonant one without any cost in terms of inferences on elementary hypotheses.

Partial Deafness Cochlear Implantation at the University of Kansas: Techniques and Outcomes

One of the most significant recent advances in cochlear implantation is the implantation of patients with residual hearing. These patients have a downsloping sensorineural hearing loss with poor speech discrimination and perform poorly with standard amplification. Studies using a variety of different electrode designs have demonstrated that it is possible to implant an inner ear and preserve residual hearing. Initial studies have demonstrated that a combination of residual acoustic hearing in the low frequencies with electrical stimulation in the mid- to high frequencies resulted in superior hearing performance in background noise. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of electrode insertion depth on hearing preservation. Eighteen patients with mild to severe hearing loss in the low frequencies combined with poor word recognition were recruited for the study. Cochlear implantation. Pre- and postoperative hearing test, Hearing in Noise Test, and consonant-nucleus-consonant testing. Data analysis was performed with Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney testing. In our study of 18 patients implanted with a Med-El PulsarCI100 we demonstrated the ability to preserve residual hearing with implant insertion depths ranging from 20 to 28 mm, giving us the possibility of near complete cochlear frequency coverage with an implant array while preserving residual hearing. These patients performed well both in quiet and in 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Hearing preservation was achievable even with deep implant insertion. Patients performed well in combined acoustic and electric conditions.