Abstract
This study investigated the reliability, sensitivity, and validity of speech intelligibility judgments for hearing aid evaluation. Subjects aged 60-87 years judged the intelligibility of sentences using either magnitude estimation, category scaling or paired comparisons. The 60+ age group was chosen as representative of the majority of hearing aid wearers. Speech recognition scores for Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) sentences and Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6) words were also obtained. The speech was bandpass filtered using filter settings that produce a monotonic increase in predicted intelligibility based on articulation index theory. Speech recognition scores and intelligibility judgments were obtained for each of eight filter conditions. Test-retest reliability was poorest for paired comparisons and CID sentence scores. There were no differences in sensitivity among the three psychophysical procedures. Intelligibility judgments and NU-6 scores were more sensitive than CID sentence scores to differences among conditions. The results indicated that intelligibility judgments are valid measures of speech recognition.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 254-271 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Audiology |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 5 |
Publication status | Published - 1992 |
Keywords
- Category scaling
- Hearing aids
- Magnitude estimation
- Paired comparisons
- Psychophysical scaling
- Rating scale
- Speech intelligibility