Voice Separation - Importance of Head Turns Positioning Strategies

Understanding everyday speech in background noise requires balanced normal hearing. The more closely the right and left ear are in terms of their pick-up patterns, the easier it will be to separate multiple voices coming from different directions. Pitch and timing information are critical in our ability to carry out this speech-in-noise listening. When attention is divided between group participants, fewer resources are available to the listener to track each voice. Competing voices with similar gender particularly have the potential to distort message reception. The difficulty is more evident with age. Hearing impairment affecting only one ear can result in direction specific errors in speech understanding. One easy way of dealing with hearing loss and age related attention issues is through the use of head turns. By turning one's head toward the proper direction, understanding can increase as much as 30 to 60%. Another, almost intuitive strategy is to walk closer to the speech source. This body positioning increases the level of speech relative to surrounding noise and enhances lipreading cues. The total effect on speech perception can be dramatic.

The take home message is maximize wanted speech and minimize noise. Keep distances appropriate, face the person you are listening to, turn off the water in the sink and/or wait until the microwave oven has finished its cycle before talking to your loved one. Visit an audiologist trained in such matters to determine if there are hearing-aid related ways of maximizing your performance. Some of the newer digital aids are very good at increasing speech and reducing background compared to those of yester_ ear!!

The importance of attention and memory skills should not be underestimated in the total communication process. Age is perhaps the key factor in all of this. Maintain a healthy lifestyle.

 

 

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 120, No.5, November 2006, pp 2926-2937