Speech discrimination in noise through television audio circuitry

The ability to discriminate words in nonsense sentences presented in a +5dB speech-to-noise ratio through two television sound systems with diverse audio quality was compared for subjects with normal hearing and mild sensorineural hearing-impairments.

Analysis of the data revealed no significant difference between discrimination scores obtained through the two sound systems; however, a significant difference between the scores of the two groups of subjects was evident. Further analysis indicated that the hearing-impaired subjects had considerably more difficulty discriminating speech in noise than did the normal hearing subjects.