Open this publication in new window or tab >>2013 (English)In: 42nd International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering 2013, INTER-NOISE 2013: Noise Control for Quality of Life, 2013, p. 4957-4964Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
This study explored speech intelligibility and free recall of word lists heard under different signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios. Pre-experimental measures of working memory capacity (WMC) were taken to explore individual susceptibility to the disruptive effects of noise. The thirty-five participants first completed a WMC-operation span task in quiet and later listened to spoken word lists containing 11 one-syllable phonetically balanced words presented at four different S/N ratios (+12, +9, +6, and +3). Participants repeated (shadowed) each word aloud immediately after its presentation and performed a free recall task of the words after the end of the list. The speech intelligibility function decreased linearly with increasing S/N levels for both the high-WMC and low-WMC groups. Recall and memory of the words decreased with increasing S/N levels only for the low-WMC group. Recall and memory for the high-WMC individuals was not affected by increased S/N levels. Our results suggest that impoverished acoustical conditions impair speech intelligibility and memory, but also that a high WMC may counteract some of the negative effects of speech noise.
National Category
Applied Psychology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-15065 (URN)2-s2.0-84904489307 (Scopus ID)
Conference
InterNoise 2013, Innsbruck, Sept 15-18, 2013 (invited speaker)
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 7555
2013-08-232013-08-232019-10-23Bibliographically approved