The benefit of cochlear-implant users' head orientation to speech intelligibility in noise

Grange, Jacques ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5197-249X and Culling, John Francis ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1107-9802 2013. The benefit of cochlear-implant users' head orientation to speech intelligibility in noise. Presented at: ISAAR-2013, Nyborg, Denmark, 28-30 August 2013. Published in: Dau, T., Santurette, S., Dalsgaard, J. C., Tranebjærg, L., Andersen, T. and Poulsen, T. eds. Auditory Plasticity - Listening with the Brain. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research , vol.4 Lyngby, Denmark: ISAAR, pp. 389-396.

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Abstract

Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in noise improve when the speech and noise sources are spatially separated. This spatial release from masking (SRM) is usually investigated in fixed-head situations. We studied free-head situations in audio and audio-visual conditions. We compared normally- hearing and cochlear-implant (CI) users’ spontaneous and directed head- orientation strategies when attending to speech in noise with a progressively declining signal-to-noise ratio. SRM-model predictions suggested benefits of head orientation away from the target speech that we hypothesized would motivate head rotation. As signal-to-noise ratio declined, observed head tracks differed greatly between listeners. Audio-visual presentation reduced the amount of head rotation. When directed, listeners made more effective use of head rotation. Audio and audio-visual SRTs were acquired at fixed, 0, and 30 deg head orientations with respect to the target speech. At the most favourable 30-deg head orientation, SRM reached 8 and 6 dB for NH listeners and CI users respectively. Lip-reading yielded improvements of 3 and 5 dB on average across conditions. CI users confirmed that training in optimizing both their position and head orientation with respect to target speaker and noise source position in a social setting was both currently missing and likely valuable.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Publisher:	ISAAR
ISBN:	9788799001347
ISSN:	2596-5522
Funders:	Action on Hearing Loss
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	10 January 2014
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2022 09:07
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/73383

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