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How Face Masks Interfere With Speech Understanding of Normal-Hearing Individuals: Vision Makes the Difference

To investigate the effects of wearing a simulated mask on speech perception of normal-hearing subjects. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: University hospital. PATIENTS: Fifteen normal-hearing, native German speakers (8 female, 7 male). INTERVENTION: Different experimental conditions w...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sönnichsen, Rasmus, Llorach Tó, Gerard, Hochmuth, Sabine, Hohmann, Volker, Radeloff, Andreas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8843397/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34999618
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MAO.0000000000003458
Descripción
Sumario:To investigate the effects of wearing a simulated mask on speech perception of normal-hearing subjects. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: University hospital. PATIENTS: Fifteen normal-hearing, native German speakers (8 female, 7 male). INTERVENTION: Different experimental conditions with and without simulated face masks using the audiovisual version of the female German Matrix test (Oldenburger Satztest, OLSA). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at speech intelligibility of 80%. RESULTS: The SNR at which 80% speech intelligibility was achieved deteriorated by a mean of 4.1 dB SNR when simulating a medical mask and by 5.1 dB SNR when simulating a cloth mask in comparison to the audiovisual condition without mask. Interestingly, the contribution of the visual component alone was 2.6 dB SNR and thus had a larger effect than the acoustic component in the medical mask condition. CONCLUSIONS: As expected, speech understanding with face masks was significantly worse than under control conditions. Thus, the speaker's use of face masks leads to a significant deterioration of speech understanding by the normal-hearing listener. The data suggest that these effects may play a role in many everyday situations that typically involve noise.