A Clinical Test for the Assessment of Binaural Speech Perception in Noise

Abstract

The present paper describes a clinical test for the assessment of speech perception in noise. The test was designed to separate the effects of several relevant monaural and binaural cues. Results show that the performance of individual hearing-impaired listeners deviates significantly from normal for at least 2 of the following aspects: (1) perception of speech in steady-state noise; (2) relative binaural advantage due to directional cues; (3) relative advantage due to masker fluctuations. In contrast, both the hearing loss for reverberated speech and the relative binaural advantage due to interaural signal decorrelation, caused by reverberation, were essentially normal for almost all hearing impaired.

Key Words:

• Speech perception
• Binaural hearing
• Sensorineural hearing loss