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Age Differences in the Effects of Reverberation and Pause on Sentence Intelligibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2010

Heather Davidson ,
David Schonfield  and
Richard Winkelaar
Heather Davidson
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
David Schonfield
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Richard Winkelaar
Affiliation:
Foothills Hospital, Calgary
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Abstract

Sentence intelligibility as a function of reverberation time and the presence or absence of a pause was measured in three age groups by means of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test. Young, middle aged, and old subjects listened to sentences recorded with approximately zero, one or three seconds reverberation time and with half containing a meaningful pause. In a second study, a different group of participants listened to an undistorted recording of the test to provide some information on the standardization of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test across age groups. All subjects, who were prescreened for audiological normal hearing, were tested for recognition of one key word in each sentence immediately following presentation. Reverberation of three seconds reduced intelligibility for all groups. Age differences which occurred at the longest reverberation time disappeared when a pause was inserted. However, only pauses before a key word were effective. Unmasking of reverberation was suggested as a possible factor in the pause position effect. Practical applications of results are also discussed.

Résumé

Le test de Kent State Speech Discrimination était utilisé pour mesurer le degré de compréhension d'une phrase après y avoir introduit de la réverberation avec pause ou sans pause. Un groupe de jeunes, d'adultes ainsi que de personnes agées, possédant tous une audition normale, ont participé a cette expérience. Il s'agissait pour eux d'écouter des phrases comprenant deux variable importantes, soient: une pause située au milieu de ces phrases de mêune réverbération de zéro, une ou trois secondes. Dans une seconde étude, un groupe différent de participants a écouté une bande enregistrée provenant du test de Kent State Speech Discrimination dans le but de fournir quelques informations supplémentaires afin de normaliser les résultats déjà obtenus à travers les différents groupes d'âges. Les sujets devaient reconnaître un mot clé dans chaque phrase immédiatement après leur présentation. Il a été démontré qu'une réverbération de trois secondes a réduit pour tous les groups d'âge l'intelligibilité des mots. Et, lorsqu'une pause est insérée dans le même genre de phrase, les résultats obtenus sont similaires pour tous. Il à noter que cette pause devient effective seulment lorsqu'elle est placée avant le mot clé, et no pas dans la dernière partie de la phrase. A la suite de ces résultats l'hypothèse suivante a été soulevée: si la pause précède le mot clé, permettant ainsi à la réverbération de disparaître, l'intelligibilité de celui-ci s'améliorerait. Des applications pratiques sont aussi discutés.

Keywords

AgingSentence IntelligibilityReverberationPauses.
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 1 , Issue 1-2 , September 1982 , pp. 29 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 1982

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