Understanding speech is a mental effort
In a quiet listening situation, syllables and words are rapidly recognised and automatically put together to form a stream of information. Such immediate listening is effortless, fast and precise.
In a noisy environment, speech sounds are masked by noise and understanding requires mental effort. In difficult listening situations, mental effort is used to fill in the parts that are masked by noise or other disturbances. Keeping a high level of speech understanding may be possible, but only at the cost of increased effort.
Listening in complex environments
Immediate and effortful listening can be combined with our Organise-Select-Follow model to create a unified description of how we listen in complex environments.
| Listening mode |
Organise |
Select |
Follow |
| Effortful |
The listener is challenged due to incomplete information – the outcome may be a poor map of the current sound environment |
As a result it is not straightforward to select a desired sound source |
If sound selection is not precise, it is difficult to accumulate information about a desired source as other sound sources may interfere |
| Immediate |
A good mental map of the current sound environment |
The user is able to select a desired sound source |
This enhances the ability to follow the sound source over time as knowledge about the selected source is accumulated |
People insight
forms the starting point of everything we do