With the ubiquity of masks due to the coronavirus pandemic, understanding language has become difficult. Pasquale Bottalico has studied the effects of masks on communication and will discuss its findings at the 179th ASA meeting. Image credit: Bottalico
As instructors continue to wear masks to protect themselves and their students, the question of which mask types provide the best speech intelligibility has a huge impact on education.
With the ubiquity of masks due to the coronavirus pandemic, understanding language has become difficult. This is especially true for speaking in the classroom, where the presence of a mask and the acoustics of the room affect students’ understanding.
Pasquale Bottalico of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied the effects of masks on communication. He will discuss his findings at the 179th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, practically held December 7-10, on the best way to overcome hurdles in classroom hearing caused by face covering. The lecture “Speech intelligibility in auralized classrooms when the speaker is wearing a face mask” will be given on Wednesday, December 9th at 3:15 pm Eastern (USA) as part of a classroom acoustics session.
“Due to their porous structure, fabrics are often used for sound absorption. A porous material absorbs sound energy because it dampens the vibration of air particles through friction, ”said Bottalico. “As a result, face masks act as a low-pass filter that attenuates speech intensity, mainly at medium to high frequencies, which are fundamental to speech understanding.”
According to Bottalico, the most important frequency range for speech intelligibility falls into the range that face masks have the most influence.
When comparing three types of masks – a three-layer cloth mask, a surgical mask, and an N95 mask – in two different classrooms, he found the cloth masks to be the worst option for listener comprehension and strongly recommends their use by surgical or instructors N95 masks.
“Because of the problems it has COVID-19 The importance of this study is to provide recommendations on the best type of masks to wear during class in order to minimize their negative impact on speech intelligibility, “Bottalico said. “The use of surgical and N95 masks can minimize negative effects on speech intelligibility and student listening effort while protecting instructors and students.”
Meetings: 179th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
