Intelligibility of conversational and clear speech in young and older talkers as perceived by young and older listeners

Abstract

A related paper [Hazan, Tuomainen, Tu, Kim, Davis, Brungart, and Sheffield. (2018b). Hear. Res. 369, 33–41] showed that, for young adult listeners, speech produced by older adults was less intelligible than the speech of young adults but both talker groups improved the intelligibility of their speech via clear speech modifications. Here, this study was extended to include older listeners with/without presbycusis. The results showed that for older listeners, speech produced by older adults was less intelligible than the speech of young adults and scores improved in the clear speech condition. The best predictor of intelligibility was the amount of energy in the mid-frequency range of the spectrum.