Acoustic and perceptual effects of WDRC amplification

WDRC 放大的声学和感知效果

• 批准号: 7006616
• 负责人: PAMELA E. SOUZA
• 金额: $ 26.54万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-03-01 至 2010-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7006616
• 关键词: assistive device /technology; auditory feedback; behavioral /social science research tag; bioengineering /biomedical engineering; clinical biomedical equipment; clinical research; compression; cues; hearing aids; human subject; loudness; neural information processing; sensorineural hearing loss; speech recognition

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): WDRC processing uses rapid, automatic gain adjustment to place more speech cues within the listener's audible range. Most hearing aids (> 80%) now offer WDRC, so over time this technology will be provided to most of the 6.2 million hearing aid wearers in the United States. However, WDRC processing does not always improve speech recognition over conventional amplification, perhaps because of distortions to the temporal properties of the speech signal. We are particularly interested in listeners with severe loss, who because of broader auditory filters may depend more heavily on temporal cues for recognition. Severely impaired listeners cannot communicate without acceptable amplification, so it is important not to distort usable information. Therefore, the long-term objectives of this project are to describe the effects of wide-dynamic range compression (WDRC) amplification on temporal cues for speech recognition and to assess the consequences of those changes for listeners with severe sensorineural hearing loss. The first Specific Aim is to compare speech recognition scores for WDRC versus linear amplification in a cohort of listeners with severe sensorineural hearing loss. Subjects will be fit with a master hearing aid using accepted clinical parameters and speech recognition measured under laboratory conditions. We will also analyze consonant error patterns, using a feature analysis. Our hypothesis is that listeners with severe loss fit with WDRC amplification will perform more poorly than listeners with mild-to-moderate loss, and that error patterns will indicate confusion of sounds that depend on temporal cues. The second Specific Aim is to describe the effects of WDRC on temporal cues essential for speech recognition. Recognition will be measured for speech processed to limit spectral information. Acoustic analysis of amplified speech will be used in conjunction with speech recognition scores to directly examine the extent of temporal cue distortion from WDRC and to determine an acceptable range of amplitude compression. The proposed project will also test the utility of quantifying amplitude envelope changes and the usefulness of these measures to predict recognition of WDRC-amplified speech. The third Specific Aim is to describe how spectral cue perception changes with increasing numbers of compression channels. We will use acoustic analysis in combination with vowel recognition. Our hypothesis is that listeners with severe loss who are less able to discriminate spectral details will show less degradation from larger numbers of compression channels.

描述（由申请人提供）：WDRC处理使用快速，自动增益调节，将更多的语音提示放置在听者的可听范围内。现在大多数助听器（bbbb80 %）都提供WDRC，因此随着时间的推移，这项技术将提供给美国620万助听器佩戴者中的大多数人。然而，WDRC处理并不总是比传统的放大提高语音识别，可能是因为语音信号的时间特性的扭曲。我们对听力损失严重的听众特别感兴趣，因为他们的听觉过滤器更广泛，可能更依赖于时间线索进行识别。如果没有可接受的放大效果，严重受损的听者无法进行交流，因此重要的是不要扭曲可用的信息。因此，本项目的长期目标是描述宽动态范围压缩（WDRC）放大对语音识别时间线索的影响，并评估这些变化对严重感音神经性听力损失的听者的影响。