Auditory, visual, and auditory-visual speech perception at increased talker-to-listener distances

Shari Lynn Schlehuser, Purdue University

Abstract

Most people realize that they use their vision to enhance speech perception in circumstances where the auditory stimulus is degraded in some way. In these cases speech perception is being performed auditory-visually or through the use of speechreading. There are many variables that affect auditory-visual speech perception, including distance between the talker and the listener. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the change in speech perception scores across modality when the distance between the talker and listener was increased. Normally hearing college students participated in this study. Testing was performed in three conditions (auditory-only, visual-only, and auditory-visual) for the five distances of three, six, eleven, sixteen, and twenty-one feet. Mean speech perception scores were best for the auditory-visual condition over all test distances. Auditory-only mean scores were second best at three feet only, then decreased to be the worst of the three conditions for the remaining test distances. Visual-only mean scores were second highest for the four farthest test distances. The mean scores for the auditory-visual condition were better than the summed scores of auditory-only and visual-only for the four farthest distances and similar for the closest distance of three feet. The mean auditory-visual score at twenty-one feet was equal to auditory-only performance at three feet and better than visual-only performance at the closest distance of three feet. The results suggest that while at close communication distances, auditory-visual speech perception behaves in the same manner as auditory-only speech perception, at increased distances between the talker and listener the input from the visual system increasingly influences the behavior of auditory-visual speech perception.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Goldstein, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Audiology|Communication

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