Perception of talker facing orientation and its effects on speech perception by NH and HI listeners
Olaf Strelcyk
Sonova U.S. Corporate Services, 60555 Warrenville, IL
moc.avonos|kyclerts.falo#moc.avonos|kyclerts.falo
Despite a vast body of research on NH and HI listeners' speech perception in multitalker situations, the perception and effects of talker facing orientation have received only very little attention. Facing orientation here refers to the direction that a talker is facing in, as seen from a listener's perspective, e.g., whether a talker is directly facing the listener or looking in another direction. Two studies will be presented. The first one assessed how well listeners could identify the facing orientation of a single talker in quiet. The second study examined the importance of facing orientation for speech perception in situations with multiple talkers. Digit identification was measured for a frontal target talker in the presence of two spatially separated interfering talkers reproduced via loudspeakers. Both NH and HI listeners performed significantly better when the interfering talkers were simulated to be facing away. Facing-orientation cues enabled the NH listeners to sequentially stream the digits. The HI listeners did not stream the digits and showed smaller benefits, irrespective of amplification. The results suggest that facing orientation cannot be neglected in the exploration of speech perception in multitalker situations.