In-Ki Jin1, Junghak Lee2, Kyoungwon Lee2, Jinsook Kim1, Dongwook Kim3, Junil Sohn3, Kyung-Ju Lee4. 1. Division of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Research Institute of Audiology and Speech Pathology, College of Natural Sciences, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea. 2. Department of Audiology, Hallym University of Graduate Studies, Seoul, Korea. 3. Samsung Electronics, Mobile Communications Business, Yongin, Korea. 4. Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Graduate School, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The band-importance function (BIF) refers to a value characterizing the relative importance of different frequencies to speech intelligibility. The purpose of this study was to derive the BIF for the Korean standard sentence lists for adults (KS-SL-A). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In this study, sentences from the KS-SL-A were used as the speech material. Twenty-six normal-hearing Korean listeners participated and intelligibility scores in 8 filters with 3 signal-to-noise ratio conditions were obtained. Based on the intelligibility score percentages, the BIF for the KS-SL-A was derived by using an established protocol. RESULTS: Band-importance weights varied across frequency bands. The most important frequency region was around 316 Hz (20.0%), and the importance of the frequency bands below the center frequency (CF) of 1,778 Hz was 59.6%. Therefore, low frequencies below the CF of 1,778 Hz were more important than high frequencies above the CF of 1,778 Hz. CONCLUSIONS: The BIF for KS-SL-A could be applied towards developing a hearing aid fitting formulae for Korean listeners.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The band-importance function (BIF) refers to a value characterizing the relative importance of different frequencies to speech intelligibility. The purpose of this study was to derive the BIF for the Korean standard sentence lists for adults (KS-SL-A). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In this study, sentences from the KS-SL-A were used as the speech material. Twenty-six normal-hearing Korean listeners participated and intelligibility scores in 8 filters with 3 signal-to-noise ratio conditions were obtained. Based on the intelligibility score percentages, the BIF for the KS-SL-A was derived by using an established protocol. RESULTS: Band-importance weights varied across frequency bands. The most important frequency region was around 316 Hz (20.0%), and the importance of the frequency bands below the center frequency (CF) of 1,778 Hz was 59.6%. Therefore, low frequencies below the CF of 1,778 Hz were more important than high frequencies above the CF of 1,778 Hz. CONCLUSIONS: The BIF for KS-SL-A could be applied towards developing a hearing aid fitting formulae for Korean listeners.
Entities:
Keywords:
Band-importance function; Hearing aid fitting; Speech intelligibility