Understanding frequency-compressed Mandarin sentences: Role of vowels

Chen, Fei1; Chan, Fiona W. S.2

2016-03

10.1121/1.4944037

JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA   影响因子和分区

0001-4966

1520-8524

Frequency compression (FC) is an effective alternative to conventional amplification for patients with severe-to-profound middle-and high-frequency hearing loss and with some residual low frequency hearing. The present work investigated the underlying factors accounting for the intelligibility of FC-processed speech. Eighteen normal-hearing participants listened to FC-processed Mandarin sentences, and testing conditions included two compression strategies (i.e., linear and nonlinear), four degrees of compression, and two segmental conditions (i.e., vowel-center and vowel-onset). Results showed that the nonlinear strategy outperformed the linear strategy in enhancing the intelligibility of FC-processed sentences. A small frequency range of source compression region involved a lesser degree of compression, and favored a higher intelligibility score. Vowel segments carried a large amount of intelligibility information contained in nonlinearly frequency-compressed sentences, but could not fully account for the intelligibility improvement from nonlinear frequency-compression. The intelligibility benefit of FC-processed Mandarin sentences may be partially attributed to the additional F1-F2 transitional spectral envelope cue provided by nonlinear FC with the F1-included spectral region preserved. (c) 2016 Acoustical Society of America.

SCI ; EI

英语

第一 ; 通讯

National Natural Science Foundation of China[61571213]

Acoustics ; Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology

Acoustics ; Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology

WOS:000373644200026

ACOUSTICAL SOC AMER AMER INST PHYSICS

20161402184824

Linguistics ; Speech intelligibility

Ergonomics and Human Factors Engineering:461.4 ; Speech:751.5

PHYSICS

Web of Science

1.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Elect & Elect Engn, Xueyuan Rd 1088, Shenzhen 518055, Peoples R China
2.Univ Hong Kong, Div Speech & Hearing Sci, Meng Wah Complex,Pokfulam Rd, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R China

Chen, Fei,Chan, Fiona W. S.. Understanding frequency-compressed Mandarin sentences: Role of vowels[J]. JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,2016,139(3):1204-1213.

Chen, Fei,&Chan, Fiona W. S..(2016).Understanding frequency-compressed Mandarin sentences: Role of vowels.JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,139(3),1204-1213.

Chen, Fei,et al."Understanding frequency-compressed Mandarin sentences: Role of vowels".JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 139.3(2016):1204-1213.