Speech Intelligibility in Adverse Conditions in Recorded Virtual Auditory Environments

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of presentation mode on speech intelligibility in adverse listening conditions as signal-to-noise ratio was systematically varied in anechoic and reverberant environments. Speech intelligibility scores were obtained from 21 normally hearing listeners using a nonsense syllable test. The syllables were recorded in three environments (mono anechoic, spatial anechoic and spatial reverberant) at three SNR (0, 5, and 9dB) using two simultaneous interfering sound sources. The findings indicate (a) percent correct performance was about 40% lower with the traditional diotic presentation compared to a virtual presentation; (b) performance in the virtual reverberant was about 5% lower than in the virtual anechoic environment.