2025 Volume 5 Issue 1 Article ID: SC-2025-2
It is widely known that high-frequency hearing gradually declines with age, even in the absence of any particular illness. In addition, since it has been reported that the average time that older adults spend watching television exceeds several hours per day, being able to hear TV audio clearly may improve the quality of life of older adults. In this study, a monosyllable speech intelligibility test was conducted on participants aged 60 or older using a TV speaker equipped with a high-frequency component emphasis processing function and a commercially available TV that was ranked highly in sales. The results showed that the speech intelligibility of the tested TV speaker was statistically significantly higher than that of the TV, regardless of the degree of hearing level deterioration. In addition, in the group with a deterioration in hearing level, the improvement in speech intelligibility by using the high-frequency emphasis function was significantly greater than in the group with normal hearing. In addition, observations of confusion tendencies indicated that the high-frequency emphasis function used in this experiment may have been useful in improving the intelligibility of nasal sounds in addition to plosive and fricative sounds.
