A Study on Psychoacoustical Proximity Between Japanese Monosyllables and its Application for Hearing Impairments

本文提出了一种基于单音节心理声学接近度图形化表征的定性分析语音感知障碍的实用方法。语音感知混淆的定性分析是语音测听数据估计的基础。这个定性方面的一个例子可以通过/ro/和/pu/对/do/主要刺激的反应的对比来举例说明。/ro/和/pu/都是不正确的，但分配给两者的SDS（语音识别分数）值是相同的。显然，这些错误的回答之间存在着质的差异；/do/to/ro/比/do/to/ pu/有更大的心理声学接近度。如何解决这一问题是本研究的重点。心理声学接近度被定义为正常耳朵对单音节混淆的容易程度，并以67个日语单音节“chokuon”的混淆矩阵来衡量。该矩阵是通过对26名听力正常的听者进行降低刺激水平引起的更不清晰感知的听力测试而构建的。使用一种称为SMACOF的非度量多维缩放方法，从混淆矩阵中绘制了单音节的构型图，其中邻近值由相互距离表示。使用这些图表，患者对单音节的感知失败可以简单地通过连接混淆的stumuli和相应的错误反应来记录。该文件指出了异常的病人的失败方面的差异，从容易混淆正常的耳朵。为本研究的应用，对53例听力障碍患者配戴助听器和不配戴助听器的单音节混淆的定性特征进行了比较分析。结果表明，该方法有助于描述助听器对语音感知的定性影响，从而为助听器的选择提供重要信息。少

A practical method for the qualitative analysis of impaired speech perception was developed based on graphical representations of psychoacoustical proximity among monosyllables. Qualitative analysis of speech perception confusion are needed for estimation of data from speech audiometry. A sample of this qualitative aspect can be exemplified by the contrast between /ro/and /pu/ responses to a /do/ primary stimulus. Both /ro/and/pu/ are incorrect, but the SDS (speech discrimination score) value assigned to either would be the same. Clearly, there are qualitative contrasts between these incorrect responses ; /do/to/ro/ has a far greater psychoacoustical proximity than /do/ to /pu/. The solution of this problem was the focus in this study. The psychoacoustical proximity was defined as the degree of ease of confusion among monosyllables for normal ears, and was measured as a confusion matrix among 67 Japanese monosyllables called " chokuon." This matrix was constructed from hearing tests on … More unclear perception induced by lowering stimulus levels for 26 listeners with normal hearing. Configuration graphs of the monosyllables where the proximity values were represented by the mutual distances were made from the confusion matrix using a non-metric multi-dimensional scaling method known as SMACOF. Using these graphs, the perceptual failures for the monosyllables on the part of a patient can be simply documented by connecting confused stumuli and corresponding wrong responses. This documentation indicates the abnormality of a patient's failures in terms of discrepancies from the ease of confusion for normal ears. For the application of this study, the qualitative characteristics of monosyllable confusion for 53 patients with hearing impairment were comparatively analyzed with and without hearing aids. Results show that this method is useful for describing the qualitative effects of hearing aids on speech perception, and that it thus provides importanat information for hearing aid selection. Less