Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties
The increased use of face masks for infection prevention has resulted in difficulties in speech understanding. Thus, there is a need for tuning of acoustic plans in hearing aids to compensate for the loss of acoustic information due to the mask.Previous studies focused on isolated vowel sounds. Our...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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De Gruyter
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/cdbme-2024-2004 |
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| author | Aharonson Vered Carlson Craig S. Postema Michiel Putter-Katz Hanna Tetin Schneider Simona |
| author_facet | Aharonson Vered Carlson Craig S. Postema Michiel Putter-Katz Hanna Tetin Schneider Simona |
| author_sort | Aharonson Vered |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The increased use of face masks for infection prevention has resulted in difficulties in speech understanding. Thus, there is a need for tuning of acoustic plans in hearing aids to compensate for the loss of acoustic information due to the mask.Previous studies focused on isolated vowel sounds. Our study measured the effect of surgery masks on the acoustic attributes of vowels and compared the effect of isolated to co-articulated vowels. The voices of 45 male speakers were recorded whilst pronouncing isolated vowels and vowels within the co-articulation in a sentence. All recordings were repeated with the participants wearing a surgical mask. Acoustic factors of length, intensity, pitch, formants, shimmer, and jitter were extracted from the vowels in all the different conditions. The differences between masked and unmasked acoustics in the co-articulated vowels were found to be smaller than the isolated vowels acoustic features. These preliminary results improve the quantification of the effect of hearing a face mask in the real-life production of speech. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-eaec0305fae6474aa27c97c4f38e01e2 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2364-5504 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering |
| spelling | doaj-art-eaec0305fae6474aa27c97c4f38e01e22025-08-20T02:51:59ZengDe GruyterCurrent Directions in Biomedical Engineering2364-55042024-12-01104131610.1515/cdbme-2024-2004Influence of wearing a face mask on speech propertiesAharonson Vered0Carlson Craig S.1Postema Michiel2Putter-Katz Hanna3Tetin Schneider SimonaSchool of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1 Jan Smutslaan, Braamfontein 2050,Johannesburg, South AfricaDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University,Espoo, FinlandDepartment of Biomedical Technology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University,Tampere, FinlandDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Health Professions, Ono Academic College,Kiryat Ono, IsraelThe increased use of face masks for infection prevention has resulted in difficulties in speech understanding. Thus, there is a need for tuning of acoustic plans in hearing aids to compensate for the loss of acoustic information due to the mask.Previous studies focused on isolated vowel sounds. Our study measured the effect of surgery masks on the acoustic attributes of vowels and compared the effect of isolated to co-articulated vowels. The voices of 45 male speakers were recorded whilst pronouncing isolated vowels and vowels within the co-articulation in a sentence. All recordings were repeated with the participants wearing a surgical mask. Acoustic factors of length, intensity, pitch, formants, shimmer, and jitter were extracted from the vowels in all the different conditions. The differences between masked and unmasked acoustics in the co-articulated vowels were found to be smaller than the isolated vowels acoustic features. These preliminary results improve the quantification of the effect of hearing a face mask in the real-life production of speech.https://doi.org/10.1515/cdbme-2024-2004speech perceptionisolated vowelssurgical masksprosodyco-articulation |
| spellingShingle | Aharonson Vered Carlson Craig S. Postema Michiel Putter-Katz Hanna Tetin Schneider Simona Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering speech perception isolated vowels surgical masks prosody co-articulation |
| title | Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| title_full | Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| title_fullStr | Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| title_full_unstemmed | Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| title_short | Influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| title_sort | influence of wearing a face mask on speech properties |
| topic | speech perception isolated vowels surgical masks prosody co-articulation |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/cdbme-2024-2004 |
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