Publication Date

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Committee Members

Misty Blue (Advisor), Tarun Goswami (Committee Member), Yan Liu (Committee Member)

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering (MSEgr)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the human capability to use selective auditory attention across the two different hearing pathways, air conduction and bone conduction. Four two channel communication systems were used as a basis for comparison: (1) both channels presented via headphones (left ear and right ear each represent a different channel), (2) two channels presented via loudspeakers placed at 135° and 225°, (3) one channel presented via headphones (both ears) and one channel to bone vibrator (placed at the condoyle), and (4) one channel presented via bone vibrator and one channel via loud speakers (placed at 135° and 225°). The SATASK sentence database was used as auditory stimuli. For the four systems chosen, each channel presented a different sentence, in a different voice, simultaneously. Listeners were assigned a target sentence and asked to record various elements of the SATASK sentence for the target presentation.

The results showed that when bone conduction is used as a channel in the communication systems chosen, the speech intelligibility scores were slightly decreased, but the differences were not statistically significant. The only systems where the differences in the scores were significant were the loudspeakers and the system that combined bone conduction and air conduction.

Page Count

49

Department or Program

Department of Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering

Year Degree Awarded

2009

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