Assmann, Peter F.

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10735.1/6051

Professor Peter F. Assmann "is one of the leading researchers in the area of speech perception in adverse listening conditions and the acoustics of speech development in children." Recently his research has been focused on the perceptual strategies used by listeners to recognize speech. This includes the development of a database of speech recordings of children between five and 18 years old in order to study the biological and social influences on speech acoustics. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (elected 2012). He also serves as the Principal Investigator at the Speech Perception Laboratory.

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    Modeling the Perception of Children's Age from Speech Acoustics
    (Acoustical Society of America) Barreda, S.; Assmann, Peter F.; 138145911066327061564 (Assmann, PF); Assmann, Peter F.
    Adult listeners were presented with /hVd/ syllables spoken by boys and girls ranging from 5 to 18 years of age. Half of the listeners were informed of the sex of the speaker; the other half were not. Results indicate that veridical age in children can be predicted accurately based on the acoustic characteristics of the talker's voice and that listener behavior is highly predictable on the basis of speech acoustics. Furthermore, listeners appear to incorporate assumptions about talker sex into their estimates of talker age, even when information about the talker's sex is not explicitly provided for them. © 2018 Acoustical Society of America.
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    Perceiving Foreign-Accented Speech with Decreased Spectral Resolution in Single- and Multiple-Talker Conditions
    (Acoustical Soc Amer) Kapolowicz, Michelle R.; Montazeri, Vahid; Assmann, Peter F.; 138145911066327061564 (Assmann, PF); Kapolowicz, Michelle R.; Montazeri, Vahid; Assmann, Peter F.
    To determine the effect of reduced spectral resolution on the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech, vocoder-processed sentences from native and Mandarin-accented English talkers were presented to listeners in single- and multiple-talker conditions. Reduced spectral resolution had little effect on native speech but lowered performance for foreign-accented speech, with a further decrease in multiple- talker conditions. Following the initial exposure, foreign-accented speech with reduced spectral resolution was less intelligible than unprocessed speech in both single- and multiple-talker conditions. Intelligibility improved with extended exposure, but only for single- talker conditions. Results indicate a perceptual impairment when perceiving foreign-accented speech with reduced spectral resolution.
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    Voice Gender and the Segregation of Competing Talkers: Perceptual Learning in Cochlear Implant Simulations
    (Acoustical Society of America) Sullivan, J. R.; Assmann, Peter F.; Hossain, Shaikat; Schafer, Erin C.; 138145911066327061564 (Assmann, PF); Assmann, Peter F.; Hossain, Shaikat
    Two experiments explored the role of differences in voice gender in the recognition of speech masked by a competing talker in cochlear implant simulations. Experiment 1 confirmed that listeners with normal hearing receive little benefit from differences in voice gender between a target and masker sentence in four- and eight-channel simulations, consistent with previous findings that cochlear implants deliver an impoverished representation of the cues for voice gender. However, gender differences led to small but significant improvements in word recognition with 16 and 32 channels. Experiment 2 assessed the benefits of perceptual training on the use of voice gender cues in an eight-channel simulation. Listeners were assigned to one of four groups: (1) word recognition training with target and masker differing in gender; (2) word recognition training with same-gender target and masker; (3) gender recognition training; or (4) control with no training. Significant improvements in word recognition were observed from pre- to post-test sessions for all three training groups compared to the control group. These improvements were maintained at the late session (one week following the last training session) for all three groups. There was an overall improvement in masked word recognition performance provided by gender mismatch following training, but the amount of benefit did not differ as a function of the type of training. The training effects observed here are consistent with a form of rapid perceptual learning that contributes to the segregation of competing voices but does not specifically enhance the benefits provided by voice gender cues.

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