The impact of remote microphones and facial masks on speech production and conversational behaviors in hearing-impaired individuals

This study investigates the acoustics and conversation behavior of the speech produced during conversations among groups of hearing-impaired individuals. Four groups of four hearing-impaired individuals, all using hearing aids, engaged in discussions on provided topics in the presence of background noise. Conversations were held in four conditions based on two factors (using versus not using a remote microphone; wearing versus not wearing a face mask). Analysis of recorded conversations focused on speech production measures (e.g., fundamental frequency, articulation rate, formant frequencies, etc.) and conversational behaviors (e.g., inter-pausal unit length, floor-transfer offsets, turn duration, etc.). Although both influence the potential difficulty of holding a conversation, distinct effects of mask, remote microphone, and their interaction were observed for measures of speech production and conversational behaviors.