The Effect of Dynamic Pitch on Speech Recognition in Temporally Modulated Noise.

Purpose: This study investigated the effect of dynamic pitch in target speech on older and younger listeners' speech recognition in temporally modulated noise. First, we examined whether the benefit from dynamic-pitch cues depends on the temporal modulation of noise. Second, we tested whether older listeners can benefit from dynamic-pitch cues for speech recognition in noise. Last, we explored the individual factors that predict the amount of dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise.

Method: Younger listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with varying levels of hearing sensitivity participated in the study, in which speech reception thresholds were measured with sentences in nonspeech noise.

Results: The younger listeners benefited more from dynamic pitch for speech recognition in temporally modulated noise than unmodulated noise. Older listeners were able to benefit from the dynamic-pitch cues but received less benefit from noise modulation than the younger listeners. For those older listeners with hearing loss, the amount of hearing loss strongly predicted the dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise.

Conclusions: Dynamic-pitch cues aid speech recognition in noise, particularly when noise has temporal modulation. Hearing loss negatively affects the dynamic-pitch benefit to older listeners with significant hearing loss.