Development of Sentences for Korean Hearing in Noise Test(KHINT)

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) is a modified speech reception test using digitally recorded sentences. It is useful in assessing speech communication in noise. This test is easy to set up and to standardize by the commercialized HINT system. We aimed to develop sentences for the Korean HINT system so as to enable international comparative studies. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Seven hundred fifty natural written sentences were prepared. They were digitally recorded by a professional voice actor, and long-term average spectrum of recorded sentences was calculated for masking noise. The performance-intensity test estimated the relationship between signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio) and percent word intelligibility by testing ten normal hearing adults. The next step was to equate the intelligibility of sentences when they were presented in masking noise at a fixed level, and 250 sentences were chosen. Individual phonemes in each sentence were counted after phonemic transcription using international phonemic alphabet. RESULTS: Long-term speech spectrum of Korean sentences showed relatively lower level, especially in high tone, compared to other foreign languages. One dB change of SNR resulted in 9% word intelligibility change. Twenty five lists of ten sentences were formed by adjusting composition of sentences to obtain even phoneme distribution, which were had 9.21.1 syllables. CONCLUSION: Prepared sentences for the Korean HINT will be useful for assessing functional hearing activity as well as international cross-language studies.