The benefit of head orientation to speech intelligibility in noise

Grange, Jacques A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5197-249X and Culling, John F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1107-9802 2016. The benefit of head orientation to speech intelligibility in noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 139 (2) , pp. 703-712. 10.1121/1.4941655

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Abstract

Spatial release from masking is traditionally measured with speech in front. The effect of head-orientation with respect to the speech direction has rarely been studied. Speech-reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured for eight head orientations and four spatial configurations. Benefits of head orientation away from the speech source of up to 8 dB were measured. These correlated with predictions of a model based on better-ear listening and binaural unmasking (r = 0.96). Use of spontaneous head orientations was measured when listeners attended to long speech clips of gradually diminishing speech-to-noise ratio in a sound-deadened room. Speech was presented from the loudspeaker that initially faced the listener and noise from one of four other locations. In an undirected paradigm, listeners spontaneously turned their heads away from the speech in 56% of trials. When instructed to rotate their heads in the diminishing speech-to-noise ratio, all listeners turned away from the speech and reached head orientations associated with lower SRTs. Head orientation may prove valuable for hearing-impaired listeners.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the CC-BY license.
Publisher:	Acoustical Society of America
ISSN:	0001-4966
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 May 2016
Date of Acceptance:	25 January 2016
Last Modified:	09 May 2023 15:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/91059

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