Other studies: Transgender voices, anger and fast-talking women
May 25, 2016年，如果听力受损的美国老年人在理解《大发娱乐》等英剧时遇到困难，他们不应该感到孤独.犹他健康科学大学的一项小型研究表明，当有背景噪音时，听力受损的老年人比年轻人更难理解英国口音.
“年长的听障人士在安静的环境中听懂英国口音比听懂美国口音稍微困难一点," says Sarah Hargus Ferguson, Ph.D., CCC-A, 该研究的资深作者，卫生学院传播科学与疾病副教授. "They had a lot more trouble understanding both accents with background noise, but the British was harder to understand than the American."
"When young, normal-hearing listeners were in quiet, they did just as well with British English as with American English," she adds. "When they had background noise, they had more trouble understanding both."
这是弗格森和她的学生本周在美国声学学会第171次会议上提出的几项研究之一，会议在城市溪的盐湖城万豪市中心举行. Among other findings by Ferguson and students:
- People perceive clear speech as more feminine than conversational speech. So transgender women who want to sound more feminine might speak more clearly to do so. 清晰的语言是当人们认为听者有听力障碍时说话的方式——比正常情况下更慢、更大声, and with a higher-than-usual voice pitch.
- Older people hear less anger than younger people, but it isn't due to hearing loss, but to some other aspect of aging.
- 语速快会让人听不懂话，如果女性比男性语速快，这种情况会更严重.
- 这些研究和弗格森的研究的共同主题是，“说话者的性格会影响其他人对他讲话的看法”," she says. "Those include how clearly they are speaking, their gender and if they have an accent."
Older hearing-impaired Americans confused by British accents
The study of British accents was led by Champougny, a neurolinguist and visiting scholar at the University of Utah. 这项研究涉及14名听力受损的老年人和14名听力正常的年轻大学生.
每个参与者都听了由一个美国人和一个英国人朗读的《大发娱乐》句子的录音，这是一个用于研究的简单句子列表. They heard them in quiet, and again with recorded background babble of 12 Americans.
"In background noise, the scores for British English were lower for older adults than younger adults," Ferguson says. "They do about the same in quiet, but much worse in noise. They do have more trouble in noise than younger adults."
"An older, hearing-impaired adult listening to American speech might be struggling, but most of the time they're going to get the message," Champougny says. "With British speech, they are struggling if there is background noise. They are impaired in their understanding of British English."
Ferguson adds: "So if you're watching ‘Downton Abbey' and you're having trouble understanding, it will help if you turn up the volume and eliminate background noise," or even used closed captions.
Ferguson says the study grew from the observation that older, 听力学诊所的听障患者说：“他们再也听不懂英国口音了——他们过去喜欢看杰作剧院。, but now it's too hard for them to understand."
Helping transgender women sound feminine
Jaime Booz是犹他大学语言病理学硕士研究生，也是一名变性人. 他说，他打算研究“跨性别者的沟通与生活质量之间的关系”."
"Transgender women say sometimes they are doing fine in public until they open their mouth, because the voice is low," Booz says. "That can be a safety issue because it opens them up to harassment and discrimination.所以他想知道“采用清晰的说话风格是否能让人听起来更女性化。."
Booz和Ferguson使用了一个记录了41位谈话者的数据库，这些谈话者有会话式的讲话和清晰的讲话（较慢的）, louder, higher-pitched way we talk to people with impaired hearing. Clear speech qualities overlap with feminine vocal qualities.
17名参与者——8男9女——听了656个中性句子（不涉及男性体育话题）, for example) in conversational speech and in clear speech. 听者对每个句子的男性化和女性化程度进行打分，从0到100分不等（而不是听者认为说话者是男性还是女性）.)
“大发娱乐发现，清晰的语言对女性气质的评分有一个小而显著的影响," Booz says. "When a talker used a clear speaking style, they were rated more feminine than when they used their regular conversational speaking style. The effect was slightly larger for male talkers than for female talkers."
The study was small and clear speech had a small effect on femininity ratings, so Booz isn't yet ready to make recommendations. But the possible implication is clear.
“我想看看语言病理学家是否能告诉一个试图让自己听起来更女性化的跨性别女性使用清晰的说话风格, and if that would increase her perceived vocal femininity. Based on my study, the answer is maybe."
Does hearing loss impair the ability to hear anger?
先前的研究表明，老年听力受损者和听力正常的年轻人都比正常人更容易在清晰的言语中感受到愤怒, conversational speech. 犹他大学听力学博士生Shae Morgan进行了一项研究，表明原因不是听力损失, but another aspect of aging.
摩根使用了弗格森的记录数据库，记录了人们在谈话和清晰讲话时的讲话. 研究人员播放了四名男性和四名女性说话者朗读14个情感中立句子的录音.
Forty-four participants (ages 18 to 32) listened to the sentences. Of the 44, 22人听了经过数字处理的录音，通过减少录音中的高频来模拟听力损失. 另外22人听的录音也经过处理（以防有影响），但没有模拟听力损失.
All listeners were asked to select the emotion, if any, that they heard in each sentence: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness or neutral.
正常听力组和模拟听力损失组之间没有区别：两者在清晰的言语中感受到愤怒的可能性都是在会话性言语中感受到愤怒的可能性的四倍.
"We didn't know if hearing loss or aging resulted in older adults hearing less anger," Morgan says. "This study tested whether it was hearing loss, and there was no effect of hearing loss on judgements of anger. 结果表明，听力正常的年轻人与听力损失的老年人在愤怒感知上的差异可能与年龄有关, not the hearing loss."
What about aging? "There is a ‘positivity effect' in older adults," he says. 这是基于一种理论，即老年人更喜欢积极的刺激，避免消极的信息."
摩根说，这一发现有一个好消息，即对愤怒的感知减少并不是因为听力损失：佩戴助听器“不会让事情听起来更愤怒”."
Are faster-talking women tougher for older people to understand?
When older adults complain of hearing loss, they often say they have particular difficulty understanding female voices. Yet young listeners with normal hearing usually find women more intelligible than men.
Eric Johnson, a University of Utah doctoral student in audiology, wanted to determine how fast people talk was a factor. He found it was.
约翰逊和弗格森使用了犹他州说话风格语料库中两名男性和两名女性说话者的句子录音, a collection of recordings of Utah residents speaking in clear and conversational styles.
Thirty-two student participants "listened to 60 sentences spoken by one of the four talkers," Johnson says. "That talker was either a male or a female, and the speech was either 50 percent faster than normal or the normal rate of speech." A computer program was used so the sped-up speech did not have a higher pitch, but was just 50 percent faster at the normal pitch.
"When we sped up the speech, it made it harder to understand regardless of whether the talker was male or female," Johnson says. "However the negative effect on intelligibility was stronger for female talkers; men and women both became less intelligible when the rate of speech was increased, but women became even less so."
研究结果还表明，听力学家应该建议患者的交流伙伴避免说话过快, 特别是在噪音中，特别是如果病人抱怨难以理解女性的声音," Johnson concludes.