Improvement of Consonant Confusion by Digital Compression

Abstract

Digital compression of speech sounds in hearing aids emphasizes consonants more prominantly than vowels. Effects of digital compression were tested by analyzing the results of speech discrimination tests, using 50 monosyllables (57s list), in 20 patients with sensorineural hearing loss. When the digital compression was applied, discrimination scores of the monosyllables were improved. The improvement was observed mainly in consonants rather than in bowels. Consonant confusion was improved in almost of all consonants, especially in voiceless consonant /s/, voiced consonant /g/ and /z/.