An 8 dB better-ear advantage can raise word identification by 56 percentage points

Evidence

Bronkhorst and Plomp (1988) measured speech-recognition thresholds (SRTs — the dB level at which words are identified 50% of the time) and found an 8 dB benefit from the better-ear advantage. For reference, an 8-dB improvement in SRT can correspond to an increase of 56 percentage points for word identification (e.g., Duquesnoy, 1983). For someone communicating in a noisy environment, this effect alone could be the difference between participating in a conversation or not. Because the better-ear effect is a purely acoustic effect, listeners can take direct advantage of it by strategic placement of their physical location with respect to people talking and the noise sources when listening in complicated environments. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1546

Categorization

• CANDY: An 8 dB head-shadow effect translating to 56 percentage points of word identification is a striking elevator fact about how physical placement alone governs conversational ability in noise.