Talker Differences in Clear and Conversational Speech: Perceived Sentence Clarity for Young Adults With Normal Hearing and Older Adults With Hearing Loss

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine talker differences for subjectively rated speech clarity in clear versus conversational speech, to determine whether ratings differ for young adults with normal hearing (YNH listeners) and older adults with hearing impairment (OHI listeners), and to explore effects of certain talker characteristics (e.g., gender) on perceived clarity. Relationships among clarity ratings and other speech perceptual and acoustic measures were also explored. Method: Twenty-one YNH and 15 OHI listeners rated clear and conversational sentences produced by 41 talkers on a scale of 1 (lowest possible clarity) to 7 (highest possible clarity). Results: While clarity ratings varied significantly among talkers, listeners rated clear speech significantly clearer than conversational speech for all but 1 talker. OHI and YNH listeners gave similar ratings for conversational speech, but ratings for clear speech were significantly higher for OHI listeners. Talker gender effects differed for YNH and OHI listeners. Ratings of clear speech varied among subgroups of talkers with different amounts of experience talking to people with hearing loss. Conclusions: Perceived clarity varies widely among talkers, but nearly all produce clear speech that sounds significantly clearer than their conversational speech. Few differences were seen between OHI and YNH listeners except the effect of talker gender.