Research with younger adults showed that cloned voices are more intelligible than human voices in noise, with a benefit of 13.4%. This study tested whether this benefit extends to 40 middle-aged listeners (45-65 years), as this population may show emerging difficulties with speech-in-noise. Participants recognised sentences by ten human voices and ten voice clones in four noise levels....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
Findings are preliminary and study-specific; no actionable change to fitting or counseling practice is warranted until replication with larger, clinically representative samples.
If voice-clone intelligibility benefits extend across age groups, personalized AI voices could become a practical tool for improving communication in noise for hearing aid and assistive listening device users.
- 01AI voice clones previously showed a ~13.4% intelligibility-in-noise benefit in younger adults.
- 02This JASA Express Letters study extends the investigation to middle-aged listeners.
- 03Personalized voice familiarity may reduce the cognitive effort needed to understand speech in noise.
- 04Results will inform whether voice-clone benefits are age-dependent or broadly applicable.
- 05Published in JASA Express Letters, a peer-reviewed acoustics journal.
AI-generated voice clones produced a 13.4% intelligibility benefit in noise in younger adults in prior research.
studypartially supportedVoice clones may offer an intelligibility benefit in noise for middle-aged listeners.
studyunclear- PMID
- 42678253
- DOI
- 10.1121/10.0046178.
- Journal
- JASA Express Letters
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- Middle-aged listeners with typical or near-typical hearing
- Intervention
- AI-generated voice clones presented in noise
- Comparator
- Non-cloned or unfamiliar voices in noise
Primary outcomes
Speech intelligibility in noise for voice-cloned vs. non-cloned stimuli