A Relationship of Tone, Consonant, and Speech Perception in Audiological Diagnosis

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the phoneme recognition errors of hearing-impaired (HI) listeners on a consonant-by-consonant basis, to show (1) how each HI ear perceives individual consonants differently and (2) how standard clinical measurements (i.e., using a tone and word) fail to predict these differences. Sixteen English consonant-vowel (CV) syllables of six signal-to-noise ratios in speech-weighted noise were presented at the most comfortable level for ears with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss. The findings were as follows: (1) individual HI listeners with a symmetrical pure-tone threshold showed different consonant-loss profiles (CLPs) (i.e., over a set of the 16 English consonants, the likelihood of misperceiving each consonant) in right and left ears. (2) A similar result was found across subjects. Paired ears of different HI individuals with identical pure-tone threshold presented different CLPs in one ear to the other. (3) Paired HI ears having the same averaged consonant score demonstrated completely different CLPs. We conclude that the standard clinical measurements are limited in their ability to predict the extent to which speech perception is degraded in HI ears, and thus they are a necessary, but not a sufficient measurement for HI speech perception. This suggests that the CV measurement would be a useful clinical tool.

Error Patterns Analysis of Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant Users as a Function of Noise

“…Experienced clinicians rarely agree on the answer to this question. Previous research has shown that hearing impaired listeners will not have the same speech perception ability even though they may have the same pure tone threshold and configuration [ 7 8 9 10 ]. In a series of studies by Han and Allen [ 8 ], No and Lee [ 9 ], hearing impaired subjects with symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss showed different consonant perception ability within and/or across multiple subjects.…”

“…Baddeley [ 10 ] supported this statement in that the configuration of hearing loss had a limitation in terms of predicting speech perceptual errors. Under a simulation technique of HA amplification, 20 hearing impaired subjects with symmetrical pure-tone audibility did not receive the same benefit from both ears [ 7 ]. Thus, limited information provided by current average correct response did not include the specific features of speech perception in these hearing impaired listeners.…”