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The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise
Speech perception is challenging under adverse conditions. However, there is limited evidence regarding how multiple adverse conditions affect speech perception. The present study investigated two conditions that are frequently encountered in real-life communication: background noise and breathy voc...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
SAGE Publications
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10566269/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37817666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23312165231206925 |
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author | Shen, Jing Heller Murray, Elizabeth Kulick, Erin R. |
author_facet | Shen, Jing Heller Murray, Elizabeth Kulick, Erin R. |
author_sort | Shen, Jing |
collection | PubMed |
description | Speech perception is challenging under adverse conditions. However, there is limited evidence regarding how multiple adverse conditions affect speech perception. The present study investigated two conditions that are frequently encountered in real-life communication: background noise and breathy vocal quality. The study first examined the effects of background noise and breathiness on speech perception as measured by intelligibility. Secondly, the study tested the hypothesis that both noise and breathiness affect listening effort, as indicated by linear and nonlinear changes in pupil dilation. Low-context sentences were resynthesized to create three levels of breathiness (original, mild-moderate, and severe). The sentences were presented in a fluctuating nonspeech noise with two signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of −5 dB (favorable) and −9 dB (adverse) SNR. Speech intelligibility and pupil dilation data were collected from young listeners with normal hearing thresholds. The results demonstrated that a breathy vocal quality presented in noise negatively affected speech intelligibility, with the degree of breathiness playing a critical role. Listening effort, as measured by the magnitude of pupil dilation, showed significant effects with both severe and mild-moderate breathy voices that were independent of noise level. The findings contributed to the literature by demonstrating the impact of vocal quality on the perception of speech in noise. They also highlighted the complex dynamics between overall task demand and processing resources in understanding the combined impact of multiple adverse conditions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10566269 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105662692023-10-12 The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise Shen, Jing Heller Murray, Elizabeth Kulick, Erin R. Trends Hear (S1) Original Article Speech perception is challenging under adverse conditions. However, there is limited evidence regarding how multiple adverse conditions affect speech perception. The present study investigated two conditions that are frequently encountered in real-life communication: background noise and breathy vocal quality. The study first examined the effects of background noise and breathiness on speech perception as measured by intelligibility. Secondly, the study tested the hypothesis that both noise and breathiness affect listening effort, as indicated by linear and nonlinear changes in pupil dilation. Low-context sentences were resynthesized to create three levels of breathiness (original, mild-moderate, and severe). The sentences were presented in a fluctuating nonspeech noise with two signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of −5 dB (favorable) and −9 dB (adverse) SNR. Speech intelligibility and pupil dilation data were collected from young listeners with normal hearing thresholds. The results demonstrated that a breathy vocal quality presented in noise negatively affected speech intelligibility, with the degree of breathiness playing a critical role. Listening effort, as measured by the magnitude of pupil dilation, showed significant effects with both severe and mild-moderate breathy voices that were independent of noise level. The findings contributed to the literature by demonstrating the impact of vocal quality on the perception of speech in noise. They also highlighted the complex dynamics between overall task demand and processing resources in understanding the combined impact of multiple adverse conditions. SAGE Publications 2023-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10566269/ /pubmed/37817666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23312165231206925 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | (S1) Original Article Shen, Jing Heller Murray, Elizabeth Kulick, Erin R. The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title | The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title_full | The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title_fullStr | The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title_full_unstemmed | The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title_short | The Effect of Breathy Vocal Quality on Speech Intelligibility and Listening Effort in Background Noise |
title_sort | effect of breathy vocal quality on speech intelligibility and listening effort in background noise |
topic | (S1) Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10566269/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37817666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23312165231206925 |
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