Effect of Within- and Between-talker Variability on Word Identification in Noise by Younger and Older Adults

Talkers alter their speech in noisy environments yet most speech-in-noise testing uses materials recorded in quiet. Sentences from a common test (SPIN-R) were recorded by a new talker in different talking conditions and the original and new materials were used to test word identification accuracy in younger and older adults. Inter- and intra-talker differences affected performance. Intelligibility was better for materials heard in noise when the materials were spoken in noise, or when the talker was asked to speak loudly, especially for older listeners. ne most likely acoustical explanation for the differences seems to be increased intensity and duration in the production of the sentence-final target words.