Wibrow, MA; (2015) Beyond speech intelligibility and speech quality: measuring listening effort with an auditory flanker task. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

If listening to speech against a background of noise increases listening effort, then the effectiveness of a speech technology designed to reduce background noise could be measured by the reduction in listening effort it provides. Reports of increased listening effort in environments with greater background noise have been linked to accompanying decreases in performance (e.g., slower responses and more errors) which are commonly attributed to the increased demands placed on limited cognitive resources in these challenging listening environments, particularly when performing more than one task. As these cognitive resources are also implicated in maintaining attention and reducing distraction, the work reported here proposes to measure listening effort by measuring changes in distraction while listening to noisy and digitally-noise-reduced speech using an auditory flanker task designed to simulate an everyday situation: listening on the telephone. Over a series of experiments this novel listening effort measure is enhanced by the inclusion of a simultaneous memory task and contrasted with listening effort ratings and conventional speech technology evaluation measures (intelligibility and speech quality). However, while there are indications that increased background noise can increase listening effort and digital noise reduction fails to reverse this effect, the results are not consistent. These equivocal results are discussed in light of the recent surge of interest in listening effort research.

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