Effects of face masks on acoustic analysis and speech perception: Implications for peri-pandemic protocols

Magee, Michelle; Lewis, Courtney; Noffs, Gustavo; Reece, Hannah; Chan, Jess C.S.; Zaga, Charissa J.; Paynter, Camille; Birchall, Olga; Azocar, Sandra Rojas; Ediriweera, Angela; Caverlé, Marja W.J.; Schultz, Bryan; Vogel, Adam P.

doi:10.1101/2020.10.06.327452

Cited by 9 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…As Castillo-Allende et al 6 revealed, SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, is transmitted through droplets, and the potential of infection 3 have reported the association between medical masks and self-perception. And studies [4][5]9 have revealed its role as a filter, which may impact voice with specific frequency. But the exact mechanism of those changes exerted by medical mask may need further elaboration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been found that people who wear medical masks may experience vocal fatigue, poor speech intelligibility and poor coordination between speech and breathing 3 . Magee et al 4 has found that the type of masks could impact the power distribution in frequencies. And P€ orschmann et al 5 have revealed that face masks might exert a frequency-dependent impacts on transmission loss.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Medical Masks on Voice Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2023

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Objective. Voice assessment is of great significance to the evaluation of voice quality. Our study aims to explore the effects of medical masks on healthy people in acoustic, aerodynamic and formant parameters during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we also attempted to verify the differences between different sexes and ages. Methods. Fifty-three healthy participants (25 males and 28 females) were involved in our study. The acoustic parameters, including fundamental frequency (F0), sound pressure level (SPL), percentage of jitter (%), percentage of shimmer (%), noise to harmonic ratio (NHR) and cepstral peak prominence (CPP), aerodynamic parameter (maximum phonation time, MPT) and formant parameters (formant frequency, F1, F2, F3) without and with wearing medical masks were included. We further investigated the potential differences in the impact on different sexes and ages (≤45 years old and >45 years old). Results. While wearing medical masks, the SPL significantly increased (71.22 §4.25 dB, 72.42 §3.96 dB, P = 0.021). Jitter and shimmer significantly decreased (jitter 1.19 §0.83, 0.87 §0.67 P = 0.005; shimmer 4.49 § 2.20, 3.66 §2.02 P = 0.002), as did F3 (2855 §323.34 Hz, 2781.89 §353.42 Hz P = 0.004). F0, MPT, F1 and F2 showed increasing trends without statistical significance, and NHR as well as CPP showed little change without and with wearing medical masks. There were no significant differences seen between males and females. Regarding to age, a significant difference in MPT was seen (>45-year-old 16.15 §6.98 s, 15.38 §7.02 s; ≤45-year-old 20.26 §6.47 s, 21.44 §6.98 s, P = 0.032). Conclusion. Healthy participants showed a significantly higher SPL, a smaller perturbation and an evident decrease in F3 after wearing medical masks. These changes may result from the adjustment of the vocal tract and the filtration function of medical masks, leading to the stability of voices we recorded being overstated. The impacts of medical masks on sex were not evident, while the MPT in the >45-year-old group was influenced more than that in the ≤45-year-old group.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Medical Masks on Voice Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2023

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“…Talker face coverings can limit the acoustic information available to the listener, with signal degradation varying for different face coverings. Prior studies have demonstrated that face masks act as a lowpass filter, attenuating high‐frequency spectral content 3–7 . Although the most important cues for speech recognition are in the region of 0.5 to 3 kHz, higher frequencies also contribute to speech recognition, particularly with respect to fricative consonants such as /s/, /f/, and /t/ 8 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Protective Face Coverings on the Speech Recognition of Cochlear Implant Patients

et al. 2021

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Objectives The objectives were to characterize the effects of wearing face coverings on: 1) acoustic speech cues, and 2) speech recognition of patients with hearing loss who listen with a cochlear implant. Methods A prospective cohort study was performed in a tertiary referral center between July and September 2020. A female talker recorded sentences in three conditions: no face covering, N95 mask, and N95 mask plus a face shield. Spectral differences were analyzed between speech produced in each condition. The speech recognition in each condition for twenty‐three adult patients with at least 6 months of cochlear implant use was assessed. Results Spectral analysis demonstrated preferential attenuation of high‐frequency speech information with the N95 mask plus face shield condition compared to the other conditions. Speech recognition did not differ significantly between the uncovered (median 90% [IQR 89%–94%]) and N95 mask conditions (91% [IQR 86%–94%]; P = .253); however, speech recognition was significantly worse in the N95 mask plus face shield condition (64% [IQR 48%–75%]) compared to the uncovered ( P < .001) or N95 mask ( P < .001) conditions. Conclusions The type and combination of protective face coverings used have differential effects on attenuation of speech information, influencing speech recognition of patients with hearing loss. In the face of the COVID‐19 pandemic, there is a need to protect patients and clinicians from spread of disease while maximizing patient speech recognition. The disruptive effect of wearing a face shield in conjunction with a mask may prompt clinicians to consider alternative eye protection, such as goggles, in appropriate clinical situations. Level of Evidence Level 3 Laryngoscope , 2021

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“…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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Brown¹,

Engen²,

Peelle³

2021

Preprint

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Identifying speech requires that listeners make rapid use of fine-grained acoustic cues—a process that is facilitated by being able to see the talker’s face. Face masks present a challenge to this process because they can both alter acoustic information and conceal the talker’s mouth. Here, we investigated the degree to which different types of face masks and noise levels affect speech intelligibility and the subjective effort involved for young (N=180) and older (N=180) adult listeners. We found that in quiet, mask type had little influence on speech intelligibility relative to speech produced without a mask for both young and older adult listeners. However, with the addition of moderate (-5 dB SNR) and high (-9 dB SNR) levels of background noise, intelligibility dropped substantially for all types of face masks in both age groups. Across noise levels, transparent face masks and cloth face masks with filters impaired performance the most, and surgical face masks had the smallest influence on intelligibility. Importantly, participants also rated the speech as more effortful in the masked conditions compared to unmasked speech, particularly in background noise. Although young and older adults were similarly affected by face masks and noise in terms of intelligibility and subjective listening effort, older adults showed poorer intelligibility overall and rated the speech as more effortful to process relative to young adults. This research will help individuals make more informed decisions about which types of masks to wear in various communicative settings.

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Effects of face masks on acoustic analysis and speech perception: Implications for peri-pandemic protocols

Cited by 9 publications

References 8 publications

Effects of Medical Masks on Voice Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Effects of Medical Masks on Voice Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Influence of Protective Face Coverings on the Speech Recognition of Cochlear Implant Patients

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

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