Relative intelligibility of male and female adult voices for hard of hearing individuals

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Authors
Cox, Robyn M., 1947-
Advisor
Hoops, Richard A.
Issue Date
1971
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (M.A.)
Department
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Abstract

The hypothesis was proposed that hard of hearing individuals are able to understand men's voices better than women's voices relative to the understanding of the same voices by normal hearers. Eighteen normal and eighteen hard of hearing subjects participated in a study designed to demonstrate the relationship between sex and intelligibility of speaker for hard of hearing persons compared to normal hearing individuals. Discrimination scores were obtained with both a male and a female speaker under both quiet and noisy listening conditions. Analysis of variance techniques revealed that no significant difference in discrimination scores occurred due to sex of speaker when the hard of hearing subjects were compared with the normal hearers. Further examination of the data indicated that neither extent nor configuration of hearing loss influenced the relative intelligibility of male and female voices for hard of hearing persons. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis.

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