- 期刊
助聽器壓縮潛時對漢語語音及聲調聽辨力的影響
The Effects of Varying Compression Time Constants in a Hearing Aid on Mandarin Word and Tone Intelligibility
摘要
本研究探討中度至中重度感音型聽損者變化助聽器壓縮潛時對於漢語語音及聲調聽辨力的影響。受試對象為十四位中度至中重度感音型聽損者，年齡為20-59歲，在雙頻道的助聽器上改變四種壓縮潛時設定，分別進行客觀語音聽辨及主觀喜好的評量。客觀評量上為了避免研究結果產生天花板效應或與實際配戴的效益落差太大，將語音混合常見的環境噪音製成不同的訊雜比(signal to noise ratio)，客觀語音聽辨包括單字、句子及聲調的聽辨力。主觀喜好上依照聆聽預先錄製好日常生活常見的聲音後，分別進行音質、背景噪音、音樂、語音清晰度的評量，最後依照整體之滿意度排列優先順序。結果顯示快速壓縮在句子的聽辨力得分最高，顯著優於慢速壓縮；四種壓縮潛時設定在聲調及字音的聽辨力無顯著差異，顯示壓縮潛時在單字的聽辨力上影響不大。聲調的平均得分最高且受試者間差異小，聽損者對於聲調的聽辨能力較能夠保存；字音的得分受試者間的差異大，顯示在字音的聽辨力上存在著個別差異。四種壓縮潛時在主觀喜好上未達顯著差異，當中個別差異大。但是就平均分數傾向於很慢速壓縮優於快速壓縮。另外，句子的聽辨力與主觀喜好之語音清晰度有顯著相關。結論為：對於中度至中重度感音型聽損者而言，壓縮潛時對於漢語字音及聲調的聽辨力及主觀感受的影響不大，只有噪音下句子之聽辨力顯示出快速壓縮優於慢速壓縮；且與主觀喜好之語音清晰度呈現高度相關，所以，未來選配上可以考慮在噪音下進行日常生活的對話，按照主觀語音清晰度的感受進行微調，但仍不可忽略個別差異及實際配戴的效益。
並列摘要
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of varying compression time constants in a hearing aid on Mandarin word and tone intelligibility. Fourteen subjects with moderate or moderate-to-severe sensory neural hearing loss participated in this study. There ages ranged form 20 to 59. They are all native Chinese speakers. A master digital hearing aid programmed with four different combinations of attack-release time was given to each subject. Then, they were tested with word discrimination in noise, tone discrimination in noise and sentence discrimination in noise under these four time conditions. Furthermore, subjective preference to these four conditions was also assessed using questionnaires. The results shows that among the three objective discrimination tests, only sentence intelligibility revealed significant difference under different time constants which indicating that fast-acting compression is superior to slow-acting compression. Varying compression time constants failed to show any differences on monosyllable word discrimination and tone discrimination in noise. Also, no significant difference was found between user preferences among different compression algorithms. However, very slow-acting compression tends to be better than fact-acting compression in user's preference. In conclusion, for moderate or moderate-serve subjects with sensory neural hearing loss, varying time constants failed to show effects on Mandarin word and tone recognition, it also did not affect subjective preference significantly. However, fast acting compression is better than slow-acting on sentence intelligibility.