The impact of face masks on the recall of spoken sentences

Abstract

The effect of face covering masks on listeners' recall of spoken sentences was investigated. Thirty-two German native listeners watched video recordings of a native speaker producing German sentences with and without a face mask, and then completed a cued-recall task. Listeners recalled significantly fewer words when the sentences had been spoken with a face mask. This might suggest that face masks increase processing demands, which in turn leaves fewer resources for encoding speech in memory. The result is also informative for policy-makers during the COVID-19 pandemic, regarding the impact of face masks on oral communication.

Face masks and speaking style affect audio-visual word recognition and memory of native and non-native speech

“…In fact, accuracy was at ceiling regardless of whether it was produced with or without a mask. This is in contrast to the Truong et al (2021) study, which found worse cued recall for conversational sentences presented in quiet when a talker wore a mask. This difference could be attributed in part to the mask type and microphone positioning.…”

“…Comparisons of filtering properties of various masks and the effect of mic positions on sound intensity showed that surgical masks provide the best acoustic performance and the lapel mics have smallest signal attenuation ( Bottalico et al , 2020 ; Corey et al , 2020 ; Magee et al , 2020 ). In addition, Truong et al (2021) used short sentences and a cued-recall task, which could have also contributed to the different results found in our study. The combined findings could be used as guidelines for best practices in teaching environments and in clinics.…”

“…Talkers in our study used surgical masks, and the speech signal was amplified with a lapel mic positioned in close proximity to the talker's mouth (though still outside of the mask). Talkers in the Truong et al (2021) study wore a cloth mask, and signal was recorded with a stationary mic. Comparisons of filtering properties of various masks and the effect of mic positions on sound intensity showed that surgical masks provide the best acoustic performance and the lapel mics have smallest signal attenuation ( Bottalico et al , 2020 ; Corey et al , 2020 ; Magee et al , 2020 ).…”

“…The exaggerated acoustic-phonetic clear speech cues seem to enhance memory traces for sentences produced in that style, enabling listeners to retain more information. Recently, Truong et al (2021) found that cued recall was negatively affected when conversational sentences were spoken with a face mask in quiet listening conditions. Cohn et al (2021) showed that word recognition in noise was improved for clear speech sentences produced with a mask in auditory-only domain.…”

Face mask type affects audiovisual speech intelligibility and subjective listening effort in young and older adults

“…Although several studies have measured the intelligibility of speech produced with a face mask, they have used either a single type of face mask (Cohn et al, 2021 ; Coyne et al, 1998 ; Mendel et al, 2008 ; Truong et al, 2021 ), a single signal-to-noise ratio (SNR; Bottalico et al, 2020 ; Cohn et al, 2021 ; Coyne et al, 1998 ; though see Toscano & Toscano, 2021 ), or presented speech only in quiet (Magee et al, 2020 ; Truong et al, 2021 ). Given the idiosyncrasies of how different types of face masks alter the acoustic speech signal and possible differences in how this interacts with the level of the background noise, our knowledge of how face masks affect speech understanding would benefit from research manipulating both mask type and noise level.…”