Speech Discrimination in Noise and Hearing Loss at 3000 Hertz

摘要

Navy personnel with normal hearing and with hearing losses at 3 kHz and above were evaluated on tests of speech discrimination in noise. Two tests were used, one previously designed for use in audiological clinics and one constructed at this laboratory with background noise similar to that found in the enginerooms of nuclear submarines. The results indicate that subjects with hearing losses at 3 kHz and above may score as much as 11 per cent more generally at least five per cent below normals for a speech discrimination task in noise. For the two types of noise used in these tests, there was little or no difference in the general trend of test results. The correlation coeffieients obtained between the pure tone audiometric findings and the speech discrimination task in noise were found to be nonsignificant for the most part. From these results, it appears that hearing loss at 3 kHz reduces one's ability to discriminate speech in noise but this reduction is minor. (Author)