The Concurrent OLSA Test: A Method for Speech Recognition in Multi-talker Situations at Fixed SNR.
Jan Heeren, Theresa Nuesse, Matthias Latzel and 4 others
PMID 35702051WHAT IT FOUND
In 22 young normal-hearing listeners, a new multi-talker speech test showed dual-task recognition dropped from 93-95% to 81-90% when call signs overlapped target words.
Longer overlaps made responses harder. It is not yet a clinical test for patients.
Key findings
01Call-sign detection was high in both single and dual tasks, with median scores of at least 90%, but dual-task target-word recognition was lower than single-task recognition, with net scores of 81-90% versus 93-95%.
02Increasing the overlap time between sentences decreased correct-response scores, and this effect was significant for target-word recognition in the dual task and for call-sign detection in the single task.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study tested only twenty two young, normal-hearing participants, so it does not show how elderly people, hearing-aid users, or people with hearing loss would perform. Many scores were near ceiling, especially in single-task conditions, which limits sensitivity and makes interpretation harder. Training effects could not be ruled out because the study did not include the standard 60-sentence training phase for matrix tests. Measurements were done in one acoustically treated but reverberant lecture room, so room acoustics could have influenced results. The dual task required turning on a chair, and this movement may have changed spatial listening conditions slightly, though the paper says the effect is unlikely with separated talkers and different voices.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under project ID 352015383, SFB 1330 B1 and C4.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat CCOLSA as a validated clinical hearing test. It was tested only in twenty two young normal-hearing listeners, and it was not tested in hearing-impaired patients.