We developed a web-hosted system for speech recognition testing and
training with spoken word and sentence materials that are visual-only (VO,
lipreading), auditory-only (AO), and audiovisual (AV). Stimuli may be
presented in quiet and in noise. Screening may be conducted for hearing
thresholds, vision, and lipreading. The software was originally intended
for web-based applications and was enhanced due to Covid-19. The system
software can support flexible and efficient development of new protocols
for training and testing. Applications are available through a browser
interface. A central feature of the system is its unique software component
for scoring open set recognition responses with sentence stimuli. In real
time, the software computes words correct/incorrect, phonemes
correct/incorrect, phonetic perception measures, and measures of inserted
words or phonemes. The real-time capability has allowed us to develop
unique approaches to feedback for speech recognition training.
We will describe the overall system capabilities and highlight several
applications. The lipreading training procedures we are now testing
remotely were shown under laboratory conditions to promote significant
improvements in VO, and AO and AV in noise speech recognition with
generalization to untrained open set stimuli. The lipreading training
procedures have been used as a teaching tool for graduates and
undergraduates in audiology classes. The software scoring capabilities have
also been shown to be effective for mining individual differences data from
responses to an existing clinical test of speech recognition in noise. The
data mining has shown that incorrect open set responses disclose
information about a listener’s phonetic perceptual fidelity and their
higher-level ability to exclude babble noise during open set responses to
sentences.
lbernste@gwu.edu
May 3, 4 or 5