Development of equally intelligible Telugu sentence-lists to test speech recognition in noise

Abstract

Objective: To develop sentence lists in the Telugu language for the assessment of speech recognition threshold (SRT) in the presence of background noise through identification of the mean signal-to-noise ratio required to attain a 50% sentence recognition score (SRTn). Design: This study was conducted in three phases. The first phase involved the selection and recording of Telugu sentences. In the second phase, 20 lists, each consisting of 10 sentences with equal intelligibility, were formulated using a numerical optimisation procedure. In the third phase, the SRTn of the developed lists was estimated using adaptive procedures on individuals with normal hearing. Study sample: A total of 68 native Telugu speakers with normal hearing participated in the study. Of these, 18 (including the speakers) performed on various subjective measures in first phase, 20 performed on sentence/word recognition in noise for second phase and 30 participated in the list equivalency procedures in third phase. Results: In all, 15 lists of comparable difficulty were formulated as test material. The mean SRTn across these lists corresponded to −2.74 (SD = 0.21). Conclusions: The developed sentence lists provided a valid and reliable tool to measure SRTn in Telugu native speakers.

Key Words:

• Speech recognition
• background noise
• sentence lists
• Telugu
• speech perception

Acknowledgements

The first author extends his appreciation for support to the Research Center, College of Applied Medical Sciences and the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University. All authors acknowledge The Director and Scientific Committee of All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru for financially supporting the study (AIISH Research Fund Project No. SH/CDN/ARF/4.43/2012 – 2013). The authors would also like to acknowledge the participants for their co-operation and to thank Lisa Mendel and two reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Those wishing to have access to the stimuli described in this manuscript are invited to contact the Director, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (or) author at [email protected], and they will be provided.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

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