Male Talkers Research Articles

Fundamental frequency predominantly drives talker differences in auditory brainstem responses to continuous speech.

Deriving human neural responses to natural speech is now possible, but the responses to male- and female-uttered speech have been shown to differ. These talker differences may complicate interpretations or restrict experimental designs geared toward more realistic communication scenarios. This study found that when a male talker and a female talker had the same fundamental frequency, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) were very similar. Those responses became smaller and later with increasing fundamental frequency, as did click ABRs with increasing stimulus rates. Modeled responses suggested that the speech and click ABR differences were reasonably predicted by peripheral and brainstem processing of stimulus acoustics.

A corpus of audio-visual recordings of linguistically balanced, Danish sentences for speech-in-noise experiments

A typical speech-in-noise experiment in a research and development setting can easily contain as many as 20 conditions, or even more, and often requires at least two test points per condition. A sentence test with enough sentences to make this amount of testing possible without repetition does not yet exist in Danish. Thus, a new corpus has been developed to facilitate the creation of a sentence test that is large enough to address this need. The corpus itself is made up of audio and audio-visual recordings of 1200 linguistically balanced sentences, all of which are spoken by two female and two male talkers. The sentences were constructed using a novel, template-based method that facilitated control over both word frequency and sentence structure. The sentences were evaluated linguistically in terms of phonemic distributions, naturalness, and connotation, and thereafter, recorded, postprocessed, and rated on their audio, visual, and pronunciation qualities. This paper describes in detail the methodology employed to create and characterize this corpus.

Development of Persian Monosyllabic and Disyllabic Words for Auditory Test of Adults and Evaluation of Their Face Validity Using Psychometric Function

Background and Aim: The utilization of speech materials in audiological assessments has faced challenges due to a lack of standardization and insufficient consideration of acoustic factors. This study aimed to develop a set of psychometrically validated monosyllabic and disyllabic words in Persian for use in auditory tests. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved collecting the most frequently used one- and two-syllable words from Persian dictionaries. A panel of experts evaluated the selected words using a 4-point Likert scale. Based on their recommendations, 382 monosyllabic words and 150 disyllabic words met the established criteria. Male and female talkers recorded these words, which were then presented in a random order to 30 young adults with normal hearing (aged 18–30 years). The presentation intensity levels ranged from 0 to 48 dB HL with 8 dB increments. Logistic regression was used to determine the psychometric properties of the words. Results: As the intensity level increased, the percentage of word recognition scores also increased, reaching 100% at an intensity level of 48 dB HL. For Persian monosyllabic words, the mean psychometric slope was 0.29 %/dB for male talkers and 0.25 %/dB for female talkers. The corresponding slopes for Persian disyllabic words were 0.23 %/dB and 0.21 %/dB, respectively. Conclusion: This study successfully developed 382 monosyllabic words and 150 disyllabic words in Persian with comparable psychometric properties. These words can be utilized in auditory tests for Iranian adults. Keywords: Monosyllabic words; disyllabic words; psychometric‏ ‏function; logistic regression; Persian speech materials

Evaluating Hearing Status and Word Recognition Ability in the Hmong Population Using Four Validated Monosyllabic White Hmong Dialect Word Recognition Tests.

The study's aims were (a) to evaluate hearing status and (b) word recognition ability of Hmong speakers using four validated monosyllabic word recognition tests in the White Hmong dialect and (c) to assess the relationship between the participant's language and the average word recognition percent correct scores, adjusting for age, gender, and degree of hearing loss. Participants listened to two randomly assigned validated Hmong word lists (male/female talker) for each ear. Pure-tone air- and bone-conduction thresholds as well as word recognition ability were measured. Descriptive statistics were calculated to analyze the percent correct of word lists and classify hearing status. A nonparametric regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between the participant's language and the average word recognition percent correct scores, adjusting for age, gender, and degree of hearing loss. Forty-eight Hmong (25 females, 23 males; Mage = 44.4) participated in this study. Thirty-three participants had hearing loss in at least one ear, and 15 had hearing within normal limits bilaterally. Participants with normal, mild, or steeply sloping hearing loss reached an average word recognition score of > 94% on Hmong lists by both male and female talkers. Participants with moderate-to-severe hearing loss scored 68% on average for the male talker Hmong lists and 60% on average for the female talker Hmong lists. Gender was significantly positively associated with average word recognition percent correct on the female word lists (b = -0.224, p = .047) but not statistically significant for the male word lists (b = 7.579, p = .141). Findings provide support for the use of the four Hmong word lists in clinical settings.

Intelligibility of British and American English in different listening conditions

Communication specialists frequently hear complaints from patients that unfamiliar accents are more difficult to understand, particularly in background noise. Previous work (Schilaty et al., 2021) has indeed shown that when presenting American listeners with both American and British accents, intelligibility in noise is poorer for the unfamiliar accent across age and hearing status. However, Schilaty et al. (2021) examined relatively easy sentence materials (Basic English Lexicon [BEL] sentences; Calandruccio & Smiljanic, 2012) in only one type of noise. The current study expands on previous work by comparing the intelligibility of American and British accents for a more difficult sentence set (Harvard sentences; Rothauser et al., 1969) in young adult American listeners across two noise types (speech-shaped noise and 12-talker babble). Stimuli consisted of 180 Harvard sentences produced by two male talkers: one with an American (Northwestern) dialect and one with a Southern British dialect. Young adult listeners with normal hearing transcribed the sentences in quiet, in speech-shaped noise at −3 dB SNR, and in 12-talker babble at −3 dB SNR. Listeners also completed a dialect familiarity questionnaire. The results will shed additional light on the interactions between talker and listener dialect, dialect familiarity, and background noise type.

Learning to identify talkers: Do 4.5-month-old infants distinguish between unfamiliar males?

Vocal recognition of socially relevant conspecifics is an important skill throughout the animal kingdom. Human infants recognize their own mother at birth, and they distinguish between unfamiliar female talkers by 4.5 months of age. Can 4.5-month-olds also distinguish between unfamiliar male talkers? To date, no adequately powered study has addressed this question. Here, a visual fixation procedure demonstrates that, unlike adults, 4.5-month-olds (N = 48) are worse at telling apart unfamiliar male voices than they are at telling apart unfamiliar female voices. This result holds despite infants' equal attentiveness to unfamiliar male and female voices.

Factors that can affect divided speech intelligibility

Previous studies have shown that in challenging listening situations, people find it hard to equally divide their attention between two simultaneous talkers and tend to favor one talker over the other. The aim here was to investigate whether talker onset/offset, sex and location determine the favored talker. Fifteen people with normal hearing were asked to recognize as many words as possible from two sentences uttered by two talkers located at 45° and +45° azimuth, respectively. The sentences were from the same corpus, were time-centered and had equal sound level. In Conditions 1 and 2, the talkers had different sexes (male at +45°), sentence duration was not controlled for, and sentences were presented at 65 and 35 dB SPL, respectively. Listeners favored the male over the female talker, even more so at 35 dB SPL (62 % vs 43 % word recognition, respectively) than at 65 dB SPL (74 % vs 64 %, respectively). The greater asymmetry in intelligibility at the lower level supports that divided listening is harder and more ‘asymmetric’ in challenging acoustic scenarios. Listeners continued to favor the male talker when the experiment was repeated with sentences of equal average duration for the two talkers (Condition 3). This suggests that the earlier onset or later offset of male sentences (52 ms on average) was not the reason for the asymmetric intelligibility in Conditions 1 or 2. When the location of the talkers was switched (Condition 4) or the two talkers were the same woman (Condition 5), listeners continued to favor the talker to their right albeit non-significantly. Altogether, results confirm that in hard divided listening situations, listeners tend to favor the talker to their right. This preference is not affected by talker onset/offset delays less than 52 ms on average. Instead, the preference seems to be modulated by the voice characteristics of the talkers.

Statistical learning at a virtual cocktail party

Statistical learning – the ability to extract distributional regularities from input – is suggested to be key to language acquisition. Yet, evidence for the human capacity for statistical learning comes mainly from studies conducted in carefully controlled settings without auditory distraction. While such conditions permit careful examination of learning, they do not reflect the naturalistic language learning experience, which is replete with auditory distraction – including competing talkers. Here, we examine how statistical language learning proceeds in a virtual cocktail party environment, where the to-be-learned input is presented alongside a competing speech stream with its own distributional regularities. During exposure, participants in the Dual Talker group concurrently heard two novel languages, one produced by a female talker and one by a male talker, with each talker virtually positioned at opposite sides of the listener (left/right) using binaural acoustic manipulations. Selective attention was manipulated by instructing participants to attend to only one of the two talkers. At test, participants were asked to distinguish words from part-words for both the attended and the unattended languages. Results indicated that participants’ accuracy was significantly higher for trials from the attended vs. unattended language. Further, the performance of this Dual Talker group was no different compared to a control group who heard only one language from a single talker (Single Talker group). We thus conclude that statistical learning is modulated by selective attention, being relatively robust against the additional cognitive load provided by competing speech, emphasizing its efficiency in naturalistic language learning situations.

Cortical networks for recognition of speech with simultaneous talkers

The relative contributions of superior temporal vs. inferior frontal and parietal networks to recognition of speech in a background of competing speech remain unclear, although the contributions themselves are well established. Here, we use fMRI with spectrotemporal modulation transfer function (ST-MTF) modeling to examine the speech information represented in temporal vs. frontoparietal networks for two speech recognition tasks with and without a competing talker. Specifically, 31 listeners completed two versions of a three-alternative forced choice competing speech task: “Unison” and “Competing”, in which a female (target) and a male (competing) talker uttered identical or different phrases, respectively. Spectrotemporal modulation filtering (i.e., acoustic distortion) was applied to the two-talker mixtures and ST-MTF models were generated to predict brain activation from differences in spectrotemporal-modulation distortion on each trial. Three cortical networks were identified based on differential patterns of ST-MTF predictions and the resultant ST-MTF weights across conditions (Unison, Competing): a bilateral superior temporal (S-T) network, a frontoparietal (F-P) network, and a network distributed across cortical midline regions and the angular gyrus (M-AG). The S-T network and the M-AG network responded primarily to spectrotemporal cues associated with speech intelligibility, regardless of condition, but the S-T network responded to a greater range of temporal modulations suggesting a more acoustically driven response. The F-P network responded to the absence of intelligibility-related cues in both conditions, but also to the absence (presence) of target-talker (competing-talker) vocal pitch in the Competing condition, suggesting a generalized response to signal degradation. Task performance was best predicted by activation in the S-T and F-P networks, but in opposite directions (S-T: more activation = better performance; F-P: vice versa). Moreover, S-T network predictions were entirely ST-MTF mediated while F-P network predictions were ST-MTF mediated only in the Unison condition, suggesting an influence from non-acoustic sources (e.g., informational masking) in the Competing condition. Activation in the M-AG network was weakly positively correlated with performance and this relation was entirely superseded by those in the S-T and F-P networks. Regarding contributions to speech recognition, we conclude: (a) superior temporal regions play a bottom-up, perceptual role that is not qualitatively dependent on the presence of competing speech; (b) frontoparietal regions play a top-down role that is modulated by competing speech and scales with listening effort; and (c) performance ultimately relies on dynamic interactions between these networks, with ancillary contributions from networks not involved in speech processing per se (e.g., the M-AG network).

Tracking talker-specific cues to lexical stress: Evidence from perceptual learning.

When recognizing spoken words, listeners are confronted by variability in the speech signal caused by talker differences. Previous research has focused on segmental talker variability; less is known about how suprasegmental variability is handled. Here we investigated the use of perceptual learning to deal with between-talker differences in lexical stress. Two groups of participants heard Dutch minimal stress pairs (e.g., VOORnaam vs. voorNAAM, "first name" vs. "respectable") spoken by two male talkers. Group 1 heard Talker 1 use only F0 to signal stress (intensity and duration values were ambiguous), while Talker 2 used only intensity (F0 and duration were ambiguous). Group 2 heard the reverse talker-cue mappings. After training, participants were tested on words from both talkers containing conflicting stress cues ("mixed items"; e.g., one spoken by Talker 1 with F0 signaling initial stress and intensity signaling final stress). We found that listeners used previously learned information about which talker used which cue to interpret the mixed items. For example, the mixed item described above tended to be interpreted as having initial stress by Group 1 but as having final stress by Group 2. This demonstrates that listeners learn how individual talkers signal stress and use that knowledge in spoken-word recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Right Posterior Temporal Cortex Supports Integration of Phonetic and Talker Information.

Though the right hemisphere has been implicated in talker processing, it is thought to play a minimal role in phonetic processing, at least relative to the left hemisphere. Recent evidence suggests that the right posterior temporal cortex may support learning of phonetic variation associated with a specific talker. In the current study, listeners heard a male talker and a female talker, one of whom produced an ambiguous fricative in /s/-biased lexical contexts (e.g., epi?ode) and one who produced it in /∫/-biased contexts (e.g., friend?ip). Listeners in a behavioral experiment (Experiment 1) showed evidence of lexically guided perceptual learning, categorizing ambiguous fricatives in line with their previous experience. Listeners in an fMRI experiment (Experiment 2) showed differential phonetic categorization as a function of talker, allowing for an investigation of the neural basis of talker-specific phonetic processing, though they did not exhibit perceptual learning (likely due to characteristics of our in-scanner headphones). Searchlight analyses revealed that the patterns of activation in the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) contained information about who was talking and what phoneme they produced. We take this as evidence that talker information and phonetic information are integrated in the right STS. Functional connectivity analyses suggested that the process of conditioning phonetic identity on talker information depends on the coordinated activity of a left-lateralized phonetic processing system and a right-lateralized talker processing system. Overall, these results clarify the mechanisms through which the right hemisphere supports talker-specific phonetic processing.

Speech recognition in the presence of speech maskers in children

Listening to a target talker in the presence of other talkers follows a protracted developmental period. Such listening skills are critical for speech-language development and have clinical value. The purpose of the present study was to examine speech-in-speech recognition ability using digits in children. The major advantages of using digits are that it overcomes the biggest challenge of test administration, and digits are among the few first words children learn. Data were collected from 32 normal-hearing children (4–12 years) using full bandwidth speech materials. The test had four conditions like the Listening in Spatial Noise test. (1) Low cue: The target (male talker) and two male maskers were presented from the front. (2) Talker advantage: The target and two female maskers were presented from the front. (3) Spatial advantage: The target was presented from the front, and two male maskers were presented, one each from ±90°. (4) The target was presented from the front, and two female maskers were presented, one from ±90°. Results demonstrate developmental effects, good test-retest reliability, and feasibility of the computerized version of the test. Furthermore, results will be discussed in the context of various conditions and potential clinical applications.

Analyses of speech recordings from an acoustic head and torso simulator with and without face coverings using both spectrogram and transcription tools

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the need for a wide assortment of face coverings to be adopted all over the globe. While reducing the transmission of the virus, the use of such face covering also reduced speech sound levels and intelligibly. Sound levels and recordings were made at a 2-mdistance from an acoustic head and torso simulator (HATS) with and without masks, including a KN95 mask, a surgical style mask, and a transparent plastic face shield. In this study, WAV recordings were made using short phases of pre-recorded American English female and male talkers from the ITU-T P.50 database. Adobe Audition software was used to improve the playback quality of the speech recordings, trim the modified files into 10 sof speech, ensure that they all started with the same spoken words, and create spectrograms to identify the mask-related attenuations or amplifications. Adobe Premier Pro software was used for the transcription of these files. Documenting which words were transcribed correctly or incorrectly provided further indication of the effects of various face coverings on speech intelligibility.

Validating Four Hmong Word Recognition Tests With Normal-Hearing Bilingual Hmong Individuals

The purpose of this study was to validate four digitally recorded and phonetically balanced 50-word recognition lists in the White Hmong dialect with normal-hearing bilingual Hmong adults. Using a randomized, incomplete-block design, each participant listened to and repeated four unique Hmong lists delivered by a female and a male talker. Participants were also tested with an English word list-List 1A of the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6. Participants' correct pronunciation of each word was scored. A nonparametric Mann-Whitney U Location Difference Test for Equivalence using two one-sided tests equivalence hypothesis: -0.02 < [(List_1) - (List_2)] < 0.02 was conducted to assess equivalence among all four Hmong and the English lists. Seventy Hmong speakers participated in this study (35 women, 35 men; M age = 29.5 years, SD = 7.1). In all four Hmong lists, 93.5% (187/200) words met the validation criteria for ≥ 92% correct pronunciation. The 13 difficult words were deemed adequate by a Hmong panel and, therefore, were included to maintain four unique, balanced word lists. The test revealed that the Hmong and English word lists were considered equivalent at the 2% bound. The four Hmong word lists were validated to ensure an equal range of word difficulty across the lists.

An investigation of interference between electromagnetic articulography and electroglottography

The present study tested whether there is cross interference between state-of-the-art electromagnetic articulography (EMA) and electroglottography (EGG) during the acquisition of kinematic speech data. In Experiment 1, we calibrated EMA sensors with and without EGG electrodes present in the EMA field. In Experiment 2, EMA was used to record lip, tongue, and jaw movements for one male talker and one female talker, with and without simultaneous EGG recording. Collectively, the results provide no evidence of signal artifacts in either direction, suggesting that current EMA and EGG technology can be combined to reliably assess laryngeal and supralaryngeal motor coordination in speech.

Role of superior temporal gyrus and planum temporale in talker segregation

Recent studies suggest the brain tracks both attended and unattended speech streams. Here, we describe the cortical mechanisms that support active talker segregation by vocal gender. Thirty-three participants with normal or near-normal hearing performed a competing speech task during fMRI scanning. The target (competing) talker was female (male). Spectrotemporal modulation filtering was applied to stochastically modulate female and male vocal pitch across trials. Using the modulation-filter patterns as predictors, spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) were obtained at each voxel using coordinate descent. STRF weights associated with female- (∼6 cyc/kHz) and male-talker (∼12 cyc/kHz) pitch were analyzed across subjects to identify pitch-sensitive voxels (logical OR, corrected p &amp;lt; 0.01), which were then characterized by preference for female vs. male. Anterior regions in Heschl’s gyrus and the superior temporal gyrus (STG) responded best to the female talker, while posterior regions in STG and planum temporale (PT) responded best to the male talker. In a control task where the talkers did not compete, the same pattern was observed but the posterior network shifted from STG to PT and responded to the acoustic boundary between talkers (∼9 cyc/kHz), suggesting that acoustically coded pitch in PT becomes voice-coded in STG during active segregation.

Validation of Male Talker Recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold Test and the Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test.

The purpose of this study was to validate recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold (SPSRT) test and Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test (SPPIT) for Spanish-speaking children using a native, bilingual Spanish-English male talker of Castilian peninsular dialect from Spain. Seventy native Spanish-speaking children from a variety of countries participated. Fifty-eight participants had normal hearing, and the remaining 12 had mild hearing loss in at least one ear. Male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT were administered to obtain baseline validation data. Participants listened to the stimuli and pointed to the appropriate item on the picture boards that represented the word they heard. Mean SRTs were within 5 dB of mean pure-tone averages resulting in a positive correlation. Performance-intensity functions for the SPPIT showed minimal significant differences across the three test lists, and performance increased as the sensation level increased. The male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT are valid speech perception picture-pointing assessments that can be used with Spanish-speaking children. The recordings present the Spanish target word while simultaneously presenting the English interpretation for ease of scoring.

The Influence of Male- and Female-Spoken Vowel Acoustics on Envelope-Following Responses.

The influence of male and female vowel characteristics on the envelope-following responses (EFRs) is not well understood. This study explored the role of vowel characteristics on the EFR at the fundamental frequency (f0) in response to the vowel /ε/ (as in "head"). Vowel tokens were spoken by five males and five females and EFRs were measured in 25 young adults (21 females). An auditory model was used to estimate changes in auditory processing that might account for talker effects on EFR amplitude. There were several differences between male and female vowels in relation to the EFR. For male talkers, EFR amplitudes were correlated with the bandwidth and harmonic count of the first formant, and the amplitude of the trough below the second formant. For female talkers, EFR amplitudes were correlated with the range of f0 frequencies and the amplitude of the trough above the second formant. The model suggested that the f0 EFR reflects a wide distribution of energy in speech, with primary contributions from high-frequency harmonics mediated from cochlear regions basal to the peaks of the first and second formants, not from low-frequency harmonics with energy near f0. Vowels produced by female talkers tend to produce lower-amplitude EFR, likely because they depend on higher-frequency harmonics where speech sound levels tend to be lower. This work advances auditory electrophysiology by showing how the EFR evoked by speech relates to the acoustics of speech, for both male and female voices.

Effects of tonotopic matching and spatial cues on segregation of competing speech in simulations of bilateral cochlear implants.

In the clinical fitting of cochlear implants (CIs), the lowest input acoustic frequency is typically much lower than the characteristic frequency associated with the most apical electrode position, due to the limited electrode insertion depth. For bilateral CI users, electrode positions may differ across ears. However, the same acoustic-to-electrode frequency allocation table (FAT) is typically assigned to both ears. As such, bilateral CI users may experience both intra-aural frequency mismatch within each ear and inter-aural mismatch across ears. This inter-aural mismatch may limit the ability of bilateral CI users to take advantage of spatial cues when attempting to segregate competing speech. Adjusting the FAT to tonotopically match the electrode position in each ear (i.e., increasing the low acoustic input frequency) is theorized to reduce this inter-aural mismatch. Unfortunately, this approach may also introduce the loss of acoustic information below the modified input acoustic frequency. The present study explored the trade-off between reduced inter-aural frequency mismatch and low-frequency information loss for segregation of competing speech. Normal-hearing participants were tested while listening to acoustic simulations of bilateral CIs. Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured for target sentences produced by a male talker in the presence of two different male talkers. Masker speech was either co-located with or spatially separated from the target speech. The bilateral CI simulations were produced by 16-channel sinewave vocoders; the simulated insertion depth was fixed in one ear and varied in the other ear, resulting in an inter-aural mismatch of 0, 2, or 6 mm in terms of cochlear place. Two FAT conditions were compared: 1) clinical (200–8000 Hz in both ears), or 2) matched to the simulated insertion depth in each ear. Results showed that SRTs were significantly lower with the matched than with the clinical FAT, regardless of the insertion depth or spatial configuration of the masker speech. The largest improvement in SRTs with the matched FAT was observed when the inter-aural mismatch was largest (6 mm). These results suggest that minimizing inter-aural mismatch with tonotopically matched FATs may benefit bilateral CI users’ ability to segregate competing speech despite substantial low-frequency information loss in ears with shallow insertion depths.

Cochlear Implant Facilitates the Use of Talker Sex and Spatial Cues to Segregate Competing Speech in Unilaterally Deaf Listeners.

Talker sex and spatial cues can facilitate segregation of competing speech. However, the spectrotemporal degradation associated with cochlear implants (CIs) can limit the benefit of talker sex and spatial cues. Acoustic hearing in the nonimplanted ear can improve access to talker sex cues in CI users. However, it's unclear whether the CI can improve segregation of competing speech when maskers are symmetrically placed around the target (i.e., when spatial cues are available), compared with acoustic hearing alone. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a CI can improve segregation of competing speech by individuals with unilateral hearing loss. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) for competing speech were measured in 16 normal-hearing (NH) adults and 16 unilaterally deaf CI users. All participants were native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. CI users were divided into two groups according to thresholds in the nonimplanted ear: (1) single-sided deaf (SSD); pure-tone thresholds <25 dB HL at all audiometric frequencies, and (2) Asymmetric hearing loss (AHL; one or more thresholds > 25 dB HL). SRTs were measured for target sentences produced by a male talker in the presence of two masker talkers (different male or female talkers). The target sentence was always presented via loudspeaker directly in front of the listener (0°), and the maskers were either colocated with the target (0°) or spatially separated from the target at ±90°. Three segregation cue conditions were tested to measure masking release (MR) relative to the baseline condition: (1) Talker sex, (2) Spatial, and (3) Talker sex + Spatial. For CI users, SRTs were measured with the CI on or off. Binaural MR was significantly better for the NH group than for the AHL or SSD groups ( P < 0.001 in all cases). For the NH group, mean MR was largest with the Talker sex + spatial cues (18.8 dB) and smallest for the Talker sex cues (10.7 dB). In contrast, mean MR for the SSD group was largest with the Talker sex + spatial cues (14.7 dB), and smallest with the Spatial cues (4.8 dB). For the AHL group, mean MR was largest with the Talker sex + spatial cues (7.8 dB) and smallest with the Talker sex (4.8 dB) and the Spatial cues (4.8 dB). MR was significantly better with the CI on than off for both the AHL ( P = 0.014) and SSD groups ( P < 0.001). Across all unilaterally deaf CI users, monaural (acoustic ear alone) and binaural MR were significantly correlated with unaided pure-tone average thresholds in the nonimplanted ear for the Talker sex and Talker sex + spatial conditions ( P < 0.001 in both cases) but not for the Spatial condition. Although the CI benefitted unilaterally deaf listeners' segregation of competing speech, MR was much poorer than that observed in NH listeners. Different from previous findings with steady noise maskers, the CI benefit for segregation of competing speech from a different talker sex was greater in the SSD group than in the AHL group.