Recognition Score of Nasal Consonants in Babble Noise

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Audiology, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Student Research Committee. MSc of Audiology. Faculty of Rehabilitation Science. Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran

3 BS of speech therapy and MSc of linguistics, Taleghani Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Purpose:
Some environmental interventions such as multi talker babble noise can cause difficulty understanding speech. Understanding consonants is the basis for a general understanding of speech. Verbal communication usually occurs in environments where multiple speakers are talking. There are three nasal consonants in Persian language with important effect on speech perception. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of babble noise on the recognition score of stop and fricative consonants.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study was performed on 48 males and females, aged between 19-24 years with normal hearing. After auditory and speech evaluation, recognition of nasal consonants in consonant vowel consonant syllable at the presence of babbling noise was tested.
Results:
By increasing the amount of noise, the recognition of nasal consonants at the beginning of the syllable reduced. There was a significant difference between recognition of nasal consonants at the beginning of the syllable with the vowel /a/in the signal to noise ratio of zero (87.5±24.18), in, -5 (80.2±24.71) and -10 (64.58±35.66) (p<0.0005), however, there was not any significant difference in recognition of theses consonants at the beginning of the syllable with the vowels/i/ (48.95±19.26) (P=0.341), /e/ (62.5±33.42) (P=0.057),/â/ (47.91±17.74) (P=0.741), /o/ (30.2±28.69) (P>0.0005), /u/ (7.29±17.83) (P=0.178) in the mentioned signal to noise ratio. There was a significant difference between recognition of these consonants at the end of the syllable with the vowel /e/ (75.00±24.73) (P=0.008), /a/ (64.58±24.09) (P=0.002), /â/ (47.39±24.32) (P=0.006), /i/ (79.68±24.54) and /o/ (60.93±28.67) (P>0.0005) in the mentioned signal to noise ratio. Moreover, there was a significant difference in recognition of these consonants at the beginning of the word in the signal to noise ratio of zero between men and women (p=0.039). The women was higher than men.
Conclusion:
Increased babble noise levels significantly reduce the recognition score of nasal consonants, and average recognition score of nasal consonants in noise related to gender in the signal to noise ratio of zero.

Keywords

References

  1. Jarolahi F, Delphi M, Tahaie SA, Modarresi Y, Kamali M, Jafari M. Journal of Research in Rehabilitation Sciences 2011; 8(2): 212-218. [Persian]
  2. Wong P C M, Uppunda A K, Parrish T B, Dhar S. Cortical Mechanisms of Speech Perception in Noise. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 2008; 51(4): 1026-1041.
  3. Samareh Y. Phonetic in Farsi. Second edition. Tehran: University publication center; 2006: 27-102. [Persian]
  4. Benki J R. Analysis of English Nonsense Syllable Recognition in Noise. Phonetica. 2003; 60(2):129-157.
  5. Anderson S, Skoe E, Chandrasekaran B, Kraus N. Neural timing is linked to speech perception in noise. The Journal of Neuroscience 2010; 30(14): 4922-4926.
  6. Parbery-Clark A, Skoe E, Lam C, Kraus N. Musician Enhancement for Speech-In-Noise. Ear & Hearing; 2009; 30; 653- 661.
  7. Kaplan-Neeman R, Kishon-Rabin L, Henkin Y, Muchnik C. Identification of syllables in noise: Electrophysiological and behavioral correlates. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2006; 120 (2): 926-933.
  8. Kujala T, Brattico E. Detrimental noise effects on brain's speech functions. Biological Psychology 2009; 81(3):135-143.
  9. Phatak SA, Lovitt A, Allen JB. Consonant confusions in white noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2008; 124(2): 1220-1233.
  10. Alwan A, Lo J, Zhu Q. Human and Machine Recognition of Nasal Consonants in Noise Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 1999; 1:167-170.
  11. .https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003341.htm
  12.  Katz J,  Chasin M,  English KM,  Hood LJ,  Tillery KL .Handbook of clinical audiology Seventh edition. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health, 2015.
  13. Simpson SA, Cooke M. Consonant identification in N-talker babble is a nonmonotonic function of N. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2005; 118(5): 2775-2778.
  14. Anderson S,  White-Schwoch T,  Parbery-Clark A, and  Kraus N.A dynamic auditory-cognitive system supports speech-in-noise perception in older adults. Hear Res. 2013 Jun; 300: 18-32.
  15. .https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/friedman-test-using-spss-statistics.php
  16. Jin I-K, Kates J M, Arehart K H. The effect of noise envelope modulation on quality judgments of noisy speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2012; 132 (4): EL277-EL283.
  17. Omidvar S, Jafari Z, Tahaei AA, Salehi M. Effect of continuous and interrupted noises on word recognition performance of monolinguals and bilinguals. Journal of Modern Rehabilitation 2013; 6(2): 51-56.[Persian]
  18. Phatak SA, Lovitt A, Allen JB. Consonant confusions in white noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2008; 124(2): 1220-1233.
  19. Woods DL, Yund EW, Herron TJ, Cruadhlaoich MAIU. "Consonant identification in consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in speech-spectrum noise." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2010; 127 (3): 1609-1623.
  20. Fu QJ, Shannon RV, Wang X. Effects of noise and spectral resolution on vowel and consonant recognition: Acoustic and electric hearing. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 1998; 104 (6): 3586-3596.
  21. Meyer J, Dentel L, Meunier F. Speech Recognition in Natural Background Noise. PLOS ONE. 2013; 8: 1-14.  
  22. Wiley TL, Cruickshanks KJ, Nondahl DM, Tweed TS, Klein R, Klein BE. Aging and word recognition in competing message. J Am Acad Audiol. 1998; 9(3): 191-8.
  23.  Krizman J,Skoe E, Kraus N, Sex differences in auditory subcortical function. Clin Neurophysiol. 2012; 123(3): 590-597. 
  24. Calais LL, Russo IC, Borges AC. Performance of elderly in a speech in noise test. Pro Fono 2008; 20(3): 147-53.
  25. Benki J R. Analysis of English Nonsense Syllable Recognition in Noise. Phonetica 2003; 60(2):129-157.
  26. Song J H, Skoe E, Banai K, Kraus N. Training to Improve Hearing Speech in Noise: Biological Mechanisms. Cerebral Cortex May 2012; 22:1180-1190.
  27. Alwan AAH. Modeling Speech Perception in Noise: The Stop Consonants as a Case Study. RLE Technical Report No. 569. Research Laboratory of Electronics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307 1992; 14-16.
  28. Phatak SA, Lovitt A, Allen JB. Consonant confusions in white noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2008; 124(2): 1220-1233.

 


Journal of Paramedical Sciences & Rehabilitation
Volume 5, Issue 3
October 2016
Pages 34-41

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics