Effects of Wearing Face Masks While Using Different Speaking Styles in Noise on Speech Intelligibility During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in recommended/required use of a face mask in public. The use of a face mask compromises communication, especially in the presence of competing noise. It is crucial to measure potential adverse effect(s) of wearing face masks on speech intelligibility in communication contexts where excessive background noise occurs to lead to solutions for this communication challenge. Accordingly, effects of wearing transparent face masks and using clear speech to support better verbal communication was evaluated here. We evaluated listener word identification scores in the following four conditions: (1) type of masking (i.e., no mask, transparent mask, and disposable paper mask), (2) presentation mode (i.e., auditory only and audiovisual), (3) speaker speaking style (i.e., conversational speech and clear speech), and (4) with two types of background noise (i.e., speech shaped noise and four-talker babble at negative 5 signal to noise ratio levels). Results showed that in the presence of noise, listeners performed less well when the speaker wore a disposable paper mask or a transparent mask compared to wearing no mask. Listeners correctly identified more words in the audiovisual when listening to clear speech. Results indicate the combination of face masks and the presence of background noise impact speech intelligibility negatively for listeners. Transparent masks facilitate the ability to understand target sentences by providing visual information. Use of clear speech was shown to alleviate challenging communication situations including lack of visual cues and reduced acoustic signal.

Engineering Design Process of Face Masks Based on Circularity and Life Cycle Assessment in the Constraint of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…For example, the "Need to allow to see the face" has an important role in the social aspect of sustainability (facilitating comprehension during a conversation and improving safety in certain environments). This requirement is highly debated in the social context; indeed, face masks decrease speech intelligibility and make communication more difficult, especially for people with hearing loss, and few works have been developed to tackle this issue [56][57][58].…”

Health sciences students’ perception of the communicative impacts of face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic at a South African University

“…A study conducted by Altschuler ( 2021 ) found that patients, healthcare providers and caregivers experienced serious communication challenges both within and outside the hospital. The use of a face mask compromises communication, especially in competing noise (Yi et al, 2021 ). Face masks obscure facial expressions and communication and may affect the doctor–patient relationship and overall treatment outcome (Padhy, Rina, & Sarkar 2020 ).…”

Occlusion of lip movements impairs reconstruction of acoustic speech features and higher-level segmentational features in the presence of a distractor speaker

“…The adverse effect of face masks on speech comprehension has been investigated in various studies on a behavioural level (Brown et al, 2021;Giovanelli et al, 2021;Rahne et al, 2021;Toscano & Toscano, 2021;Yi et al, 2021). Despite the overall agreement of the adverse effects of face masks on speech comprehension, it has been unclear which features of speech processing are specifically affected.…”