Speech-in-noise ability is scored as the added SNR a listener needs

Evidence

Speech-in-noise performance was assessed behaviourally using the QuickSIN test (Killion et al. 2004 ). Six sets of six sentences with five key words per sentence were presented to both ears in four-talker babble noise. The sentences were presented with decreasing signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) from + 25 dB SNR to 0 dB SNR in 5 dB steps (+ 25, + 20, + 15, + 10, + 5 and 0 dB). The average SNR loss was calculated across the six lists. This score indicates the increase in SNR required for the participant to understand the sentence compared with a normal hearing person. Any score less than 4 dB is considered normal, and a lower SNR loss score reflects better speech-in-noise performance. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4162

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the QuickSIN SNR loss metric, useful as a reference standard for what ‘normal’ speech-in-noise performance means operationally.