Measurement of speech quality as a tool to optimize the fitting of a hearing aid

The purpose of the present research was to develop a theoretical basis for the adjustment of hearing aid frequency response based on speech quality measurements. Speech quality measurements were made using continuous discourse and a category rating procedure for the following dimensions: intelligibi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of speech and hearing research Vol. 38; no. 3; p. 726
Main Authors Preminger, J E, Van Tasell, D J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.06.1995
Subjects
Adult
Bone Conduction
Correction of Hearing Impairment
Hearing Aids
Humans
Middle Aged
Observer Variation
Prosthesis Fitting
Reproducibility of Results
Speech
Speech Intelligibility
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Summary:The purpose of the present research was to develop a theoretical basis for the adjustment of hearing aid frequency response based on speech quality measurements. Speech quality measurements were made using continuous discourse and a category rating procedure for the following dimensions: intelligibility, pleasantness, loudness, effort, noisiness, and total impression. Speech quality ratings were obtained from a group of listeners with hearing loss who wore hearing aids. The stimulus conditions simulated hearing aid frequency response alterations within a frequency response range where intelligibility was held constant at or near 100%. The subject ratings revealed that (a) different listeners interpreted the individual dimensions in different ways; (b) within listeners, most of the dimensions were unique; that is, they were rated differently; and (c) across listeners, pleasantness was the dimension most highly correlated with total impression.
ISSN:0022-4685
DOI:10.1044/jshr.3803.726