Effect of number of talkers and language of babble on acceptable noise level in Kannada listeners

Abstract

Objective: The objectives of the study were to evaluate the effect of number of talkers (2-talker, 4-talker, 8-talker, 10-talker and 12-talker) in native (Kannada) and non-native (English) speech babble on acceptable noise level (ANL) in individuals with normal hearing; and to compare ANL obtained in the presence of Kannada speech babble with that of English speech babble across different number of talker babbles.

Study sample: Thirty participants between in the age range of 18-24 years with normal hearing sensitivity participated in the study. ANL was obtained in the presence of different number of talkers in English and Kannada languages.

Results: The results revealed that Kannada talker babble had lower ANL for 8-talker babble whereas in English, 2-talker babble had the lowest ANL. The results also showed that ANL was lower when Kannada babble was used when compared to English babble. The reason for this result could be due to familiarity with the languages and the similarity between the two languages of interest.

Keywords:

• Acceptable noise level
• Kannada speech babble
• English speech babble
• normal hearing individuals

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to extend their thanks to the Director, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore and to all the participants of the present study. This research article was presented at the 49th National Conference of Indian speech and Hearing Association held in Kolkata, India from 6th to 8th January 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.