@inproceedings {Kollmeier1727_2016,
	year = {2016},
	author = {Kollmeier, Birger and Warzybok, Anna and Hochmuth, Sabine and Boboshko, Maria and Bentler, Ruth and Zokoll, Melanie},
	title = {Multilingual Matrix Sentence Recognition Tests: Providing a common Ground for Multi-Center Audiological Studies},
	booktitle = {Assoc. Res. Otolaryng. MidWinter Meeting (ARO)},
	URL = {http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.aro.org/resource/resmgr/Abstract_Archives/UPDATED_2016_ARO_Abstract_Bo.pdf},
	abstract = {Introduction
The difficulty of understanding speech in noisy environments
is not very well reflected by pure tone audiogram findings.
To better understand a patient’s problem, it is necessary to
assess his or her communication ability in noisy environments.
This might also help to assess possible supra-threshold
distortions that occur in the auditory system as a result of
hearing impairment, independent from the sensitivity loss
assessed by the tone audiogram or speech audiometry in
quiet. Hence, speech recognition tests in noise have become
more and more important in audiological diagnostics in
recent years. So-called ‘matrix sentence tests’ use a closedset
format and comprise syntactically fixed, semantically
unpredictable sentences (e.g. “Peter kept two green toys”).
Providing a vocabulary of only 50 words (10 alternatives for
each position in the sentence), matrix sentence tests are
suitable for speech perception testing without losing the
usability for repeated speech perception testing with the same
patient. In a multilingual society where each patient should be
tested with her or his native language, experimenters that do
not understand the test language may still supervise the test
if its closed-set response format is used. Meanwhile matrix
sentences tests developed according to common minimum
quality standards for speech intelligibility tests are available
for 15 different languages (i.e., in Swedish, German, Danish,
Dutch, American English, British English, French, Polish,
Turkish, Spanish, Italian, Persian, Arabian, Finnish, and
Russian) together with a varying degree of supportive data.
The common quality standards result in a high homogeneity
of the speech materials and test lists employed what yields
steep test-specific intelligibility functions and high test
efficiency.
Methods
This contribution presents matrix sentence test data of two
multi-center studies in the USA and Russia investigating the
different influence of hearing ability on the SRT in quiet and
noise. Data include adaptively estimated speech reception
thresholds (SRTs), i.e. the sound pressure levels or signal-tonoise
ratios (SNR) yielding 50% speech intelligibility, as well
as correlations between hearing ability and SRT.
Results
The common quality standards applied during their
development resulted in efficient and reliable tests with
high comparability across the languages. Data emphasize
the high potential of matrix sentence tests to disentangle
the contribution of possible supra-threshold distortions to a
certain hearing loss from that of the pure loss in sensitivity.
Conclusions
The Matrix test format has been shown as a sensitive
diagnostic tool suitable for multilingual comparisons.
Funding
DFG, Cluster of Excellence 1077 Hearing4All}
}