Role of Aided Temporal Cues in Aided Speech Recognition

Despite the enormous benefit of hearing aids, hearing aid users continue to recognize less speech than normal hearing listeners. In order to improve speech recognition for hearing aid users, it is imperative that we better understand what contributes to poorer aided speech recognition. This paper is concerned with the perception of two acoustic cues essential for speech recognition, amplitude modulations (changes in intensity) and gaps (silent intervals). Compression and linear amplification are two different hearing aid settings that potentially affect the ability of a user to detect amplitude modulations and gaps.;This study addressed the following: (1) does compression affect the ability of a listener to detect amplitude modulations and gaps and (2) do aided amplitude modulation and gap detection thresholds relate to speech recognition? Subjects with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss were fitted with binaural hearing aids. Each subject was tested using both linear and compression amplification. The ability of aided listeners to detect amplitude modulations and gaps was measured. Voiceless syllable recognition was determined. To control for spectral cues, the speech was processed using signal correlated noise. Subjects with better aided modulation and gap thresholds tended to have better speech recognition.