Poster Session #2: UC South Ballroom
Backward Masking and Speech Perception
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Al Yonovitz
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Backward masking (BM) has shown differential effects with age and auditory processing. BM may be related to reduced speech discrimination. This study utilized 21 Vowel-Consonant (VC) stimuli followed by a white noise masker. The Interstimulus Interval (ISI) is the time between a presented consonant and the masking noise. The ISI interval was 5 msec and the noise duration was 50, 100 and 200 msec. Each stimulus was randomly presented ten times. Confusion matrices were obtained by having the subject respond to the presented consonant. The confusion matrix is essentially the correct and incorrect responses. The data yielded consonant intelligibility and information transmission for distinctive features. The results indicated a reduction in selected features as well as reduced consonant identification as BM became more effective. This study provides evidence for reduced speech understanding in children and adults with auditory processing deficits and the elderly experiencing hearing difficulties.
Category
Life Sciences
Backward Masking and Speech Perception
Backward masking (BM) has shown differential effects with age and auditory processing. BM may be related to reduced speech discrimination. This study utilized 21 Vowel-Consonant (VC) stimuli followed by a white noise masker. The Interstimulus Interval (ISI) is the time between a presented consonant and the masking noise. The ISI interval was 5 msec and the noise duration was 50, 100 and 200 msec. Each stimulus was randomly presented ten times. Confusion matrices were obtained by having the subject respond to the presented consonant. The confusion matrix is essentially the correct and incorrect responses. The data yielded consonant intelligibility and information transmission for distinctive features. The results indicated a reduction in selected features as well as reduced consonant identification as BM became more effective. This study provides evidence for reduced speech understanding in children and adults with auditory processing deficits and the elderly experiencing hearing difficulties.