A study of auditory perception of formant-emphasized speech

Abstract

This study was performed for investigation of the relationship between the preference of formant-emphasized speech and the degree of hearing loss of the listeners. A few types of the formant-emphasized speech sentence were produced by amplification of extracting formant frequency bands. These materials were presented and comfortable listening was tested on 20 normals and 85 hearing impaired listeners in 2 grouqs of experimental conditions; A) (1) an original speech, (2) 6 times amplified formant-emphasized speech, and (3) a formant-extracted speech with elimination of nonformant frequency bands; B) (4) an original speech with a white noise of 20dB of S/N ratio and (5) the formant-emphasized speech with a white noise of 20dB S/N ratio. The listeners were asked to select the most comfortable listening condition in each group. The results showed that, in the group A (noise-free condition), the original speech was most comfortable in all subjects, and in the group B (noise-added condition), the formant-emphasized speech was most comfortable in the cearing impaired with a hearing loss of 40dB or greater. These results indicated that formant-emphasized speech can be useful for the hearing impaired in noisy condition.