Relationships Between Speech Recognition Threshold, Average Hearing Level, and Speech Importance Noise Detection Threshold

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine (a) if the speech importance noise detection threshold (SINDT) could be used as an accurate estimator of speech recognition threshold (SRT), and (b) whether the SINDT correlates well with various measures of the pure-tone threshold average (PTA). Pure-tone threshold, SRT, and SINDT tests were administered to 94 adults with various degrees of hearing loss. The results demonstrated that SRT can be accurately predicted from SINDT and that these two are highly correlated ( r = 0.97). Since a SINDT measurement takes less time than SRT determination, the SINDT test may be recommended as an alternative for SRT in some applications.