The effects of informative and non-informative speech on the judgment of most comfortable listening level.

Fifteen normal-hearing males and fifteen normal-hearing females were presented with a portion of speech played in a forward and a backward direction. The speech was presented in an ascending manner, and the subjects were asked to make comfortable listening judgments. Results indicated that most comfortable listening level is independent of the direction of the speech stimulus and thus independent of information content. Results also showed that sex of the listener plays an unimportant role in most comfortable listening level. Overall, the results indicated that most comfortable listening level results from clinical populations will be little influenced by the listener's ability to understand the stimulus message and thus little influenced by the degree of reduction to speech discrimination ability.