Implicit and Explicit Voice Training Effects on Speech-on-Speech Perception and Listening Effort.
Ada Biçer, Deniz Başkent, Carolyn McGettigan and 1 others
PMID 41807313WHAT IT FOUND
Neither voice training method improved speech intelligibility.
However, both methods reduced listening effort in specific difficult conditions. Explicit training generally required less cognitive load than implicit training. These benefits appeared only when background noise levels were unfavorable, with no overall performance gain.
Key findings
01Neither implicit nor explicit voice training resulted in a significant main effect on speech intelligibility.
02Explicit voice training showed reduced listening effort at the most difficult target-to-masker ratio, while implicit training showed reduced effort at the middle ratio.
03Pupil dilation was significantly smaller for explicitly trained voices compared to implicitly trained voices at two of the three difficulty levels.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used only normal-hearing participants, so results may not apply to patients with hearing loss. Small effects and interactions were not reliably captured by the sample size of 32 participants. The same speech material was used for training and testing, which may have confounded the results with familiarity of the specific sentences rather than just the voice. Participants were all native Dutch speakers, limiting generalizability to other languages.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development, the Heinsius Houbolt Foundation, and a Research Council of Norway grant. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that voice training improves speech understanding. The study found no significant gain in intelligibility for either training method. The observed benefits were limited to reduced listening effort (cognitive load) in specific, difficult conditions, and explicit training actually made listening more effortful at one difficulty level.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →