Abstract
Background:
It is generally well known that speech perception is often improved with integrated
audiovisual input whether in quiet or in noise. In many health-care environments,
however, conventional surgical masks block visual access to the mouth and obscure
other potential facial cues. In addition, these environments can be noisy. Although
these masks may not alter the acoustic properties, the presence of noise in addition
to the lack of visual input can have a deleterious effect on speech understanding.
A transparent (“see-through”) surgical mask may help to overcome this issue.
Purpose:
To compare the effect of noise and various visual input conditions on speech understanding
for listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing impairment using different surgical
masks.
Research Design:
Participants were assigned to one of three groups based on hearing sensitivity in
this quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study.
Study Sample:
A total of 31 adults participated in this study: one talker, ten listeners with NH,
ten listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss, and ten listeners with severe-to-profound
hearing loss.
Data Collection and Analysis:
Selected lists from the Connected Speech Test were digitally recorded with and without
surgical masks and then presented to the listeners at 65 dB HL in five conditions
against a background of four-talker babble (+10 dB SNR): without a mask (auditory
only), without a mask (auditory and visual), with a transparent mask (auditory only),
with a transparent mask (auditory and visual), and with a paper mask (auditory only).
Results:
A significant difference was found in the spectral analyses of the speech stimuli
with and without the masks; however, no more than ∼2 dB root mean square. Listeners
with NH performed consistently well across all conditions. Both groups of listeners
with hearing impairment benefitted from visual input from the transparent mask. The
magnitude of improvement in speech perception in noise was greatest for the severe-to-profound
group.
Conclusions:
Findings confirm improved speech perception performance in noise for listeners with
hearing impairment when visual input is provided using a transparent surgical mask.
Most importantly, the use of the transparent mask did not negatively affect speech
perception performance in noise.
Key Words
background noise - speech perception - surgical masks
