Listening Effort for Soft Speech in Quiet.

IF 3 2区 医学 Q1 AUDIOLOGY & SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY
Trends in Hearing Pub Date : 2025-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-08-18 DOI:10.1177/23312165251370006
Hendrik Husstedt, Jennifer Schmidt, Luca Wiederschein, Robert Wiedenbeck, Markus Kemper, Florian Denk
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Abstract

In addition to speech intelligibility, listening effort has emerged as a critical indicator of hearing performance. It can be defined as the effort experienced or invested in solving an auditory task. Subjective, behavioral, and physiological methods have been employed to assess listening effort. While previous studies have focused predominantly evaluated listening effort at clearly audible levels, such as in speech-in-noise conditions, we present findings from a study investigating listening effort for soft speech in quiet. Twenty young adults with normal hearing participated in speech intelligibility testing (OLSA), adaptive listening effort scaling (ACALES), and pupillometry. Experienced effort decreased with increasing speech level and "no effort" was reached at 40 dB sound pressure level (SPL). The difference between levels rated with "extreme effort" and "no effort" was, on average, 20.6 dB SPL. Thus, speech must be presented well above the speech-recognition threshold in quiet to achieve effortless listening. These results prompted a follow-up experiment involving 18 additional participants, who completed OLSA and ACALES tests with hearing threshold-simulating noise at conversational levels. Comparing the results of the main and follow-up experiments suggests that the observations in quiet cannot be fully attributed to the masking effects of internal noise but likely also reflect cognitive processes that are not yet fully understood. These findings have important implications, particularly regarding the benefits of amplification for soft sounds. We propose that the concept of a threshold for effortless listening has been overlooked and should be prioritized in future research, especially in the context of soft speech in quiet environments.

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安静环境下轻声说话的听力努力。
除了言语可理解性,听力努力也成为听力表现的一个重要指标。它可以被定义为在解决听觉任务中所经历或投入的努力。主观的、行为的和生理的方法被用来评估听力努力。虽然以前的研究主要集中在评估清晰可听水平下的听力努力,例如在噪音条件下的语音,但我们的研究结果来自于一项研究,调查了安静环境下软语的听力努力。20名听力正常的年轻人参加了语音清晰度测试(OLSA)、自适应听力努力量表(ACALES)和瞳孔测量。声压级(SPL)为40 dB时达到“不费力”;被评为“极度努力”和“不努力”的水平之间的差异平均为20.6 dB SPL。因此,语音必须在安静的情况下远高于语音识别阈值,以实现轻松的聆听。这些结果促使另外18名参与者进行了后续实验,他们在会话水平的听力阈值模拟噪音下完成了OLSA和ACALES测试。比较主要实验和后续实验的结果表明,安静环境下的观察结果不能完全归因于内部噪音的掩蔽效应,而可能也反映了尚未完全理解的认知过程。这些发现具有重要的意义,特别是关于对柔和声音的放大的好处。我们认为,在未来的研究中,特别是在安静环境中的软语环境中,容易倾听的阈值概念被忽视了,应该优先考虑。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Trends in Hearing
Trends in Hearing AUDIOLOGY & SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGYOTORH-OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGY
CiteScore
4.50
自引率
11.10%
发文量
44
审稿时长
12 weeks
期刊介绍: Trends in Hearing is an open access journal completely dedicated to publishing original research and reviews focusing on human hearing, hearing loss, hearing aids, auditory implants, and aural rehabilitation. Under its former name, Trends in Amplification, the journal established itself as a forum for concise explorations of all areas of translational hearing research by leaders in the field. Trends in Hearing has now expanded its focus to include original research articles, with the goal of becoming the premier venue for research related to human hearing and hearing loss.
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