Poster Session #2: UC Ballroom

Consonant perception with reverberant monaural and binaural presentation

Presentation Type

Poster

Faculty Mentor’s Full Name

Al Yonovitz

Faculty Mentor’s Department

Communicative Sciences and Disorders

Abstract / Artist's Statement

Consonant Perception with Reverberant Monaural and Binaural Presentation Consonant perception significantly influences an individual’s ability to effectively participate and learn in a classroom environment. Research has found that speech intelligibility decreases greatly with increased reverberation times (Moncur and Dirks, 1967) , while binaural hearing provides a hearing advantage (i.e. via consonant perception) compared to monaural hearing in reverberant and noisy conditions (Helfer, 1994). This research investigation determined consonant perception for reverberant and binaural presentation for different consonants as well as the improvements from two ear listening. Participants were Communicative Sciences and Disorders undergraduate and graduate students experienced in phonetic transcription. Subjects were presented 21 consonant-vowel (CV) sylables each randomly repeated 10 times each. The stimuli were presented via a computer. Each subject listened with headphones at a level of 65 dB HL (average conversational level). Participants responded by entering a response on a keyboard. Four reverberation times were tested. These included, 0, 0.6, 1.2, and 2.4 sec. Both in-phase and out-of-phase signals were presented in noise at 0 and 2.4 sec in order to test for the combined effect of noise interference, reverberation and a binaural advantage. Results were analyzed by computing errors for each consonant as well as using distinctive features to summarize consonant type. The different types of perceptual processes influencing this enhancement have not completely identified and the impact of the binaural effect on consonant error patterns has not been determined. It is important that these issues are investigated in order to enhance the listening conditions of the classroom environment.

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Apr 13th, 3:00 PM Apr 13th, 4:00 PM

Consonant perception with reverberant monaural and binaural presentation

UC Ballroom

Consonant Perception with Reverberant Monaural and Binaural Presentation Consonant perception significantly influences an individual’s ability to effectively participate and learn in a classroom environment. Research has found that speech intelligibility decreases greatly with increased reverberation times (Moncur and Dirks, 1967) , while binaural hearing provides a hearing advantage (i.e. via consonant perception) compared to monaural hearing in reverberant and noisy conditions (Helfer, 1994). This research investigation determined consonant perception for reverberant and binaural presentation for different consonants as well as the improvements from two ear listening. Participants were Communicative Sciences and Disorders undergraduate and graduate students experienced in phonetic transcription. Subjects were presented 21 consonant-vowel (CV) sylables each randomly repeated 10 times each. The stimuli were presented via a computer. Each subject listened with headphones at a level of 65 dB HL (average conversational level). Participants responded by entering a response on a keyboard. Four reverberation times were tested. These included, 0, 0.6, 1.2, and 2.4 sec. Both in-phase and out-of-phase signals were presented in noise at 0 and 2.4 sec in order to test for the combined effect of noise interference, reverberation and a binaural advantage. Results were analyzed by computing errors for each consonant as well as using distinctive features to summarize consonant type. The different types of perceptual processes influencing this enhancement have not completely identified and the impact of the binaural effect on consonant error patterns has not been determined. It is important that these issues are investigated in order to enhance the listening conditions of the classroom environment.