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Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of eight different facemasks on speech perception and listening effort in listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing loss by manipulating both mask type and background noise levels. Method: Forty adults listened to Quick Speech-in-Noise Test sentences recorded by a female talker through eight different facemasks including a baseline condition with no mask. Listeners were tested in the sound field positioned 6 ft from the loudspeaker. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss and listening effort were measured. Results: Listeners with NH exhibited a mild SNR loss, whereas those with hearing loss experienced a moderate SNR loss. Scores for the mild hearing loss group were significantly poorer (higher) than those with slight hearing loss. Speech perception performance was best in the no mask, KN95, and surgical mask conditions and poorest in the cloth mask and cloth mask plus face shield conditions for all groups. As listening effort decreased, speech perception increased for all groups. Conclusions: The impact of different types of facemasks on speech perception in noise was demonstrated in this study indicating that as the SNR was reduced, listening effort increased and speech perception performance decreased for listeners with NH and slight/mild hearing loss. No mask, KN95, and surgical masks had the least impact on performance, whereas cloth masks posed a significant detriment to communication. If communication is to occur in a background of noise while wearing masks, a KN95 mask and an SNR of at least +15 dB is recommended regardless of hearing status.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of eight different facemasks on speech perception and listening effort in listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing loss by manipulating both mask type and background noise levels. Method: Forty adults listened to Quick Speech-in-Noise Test sentences recorded by a female talker through eight different facemasks including a baseline condition with no mask. Listeners were tested in the sound field positioned 6 ft from the loudspeaker. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss and listening effort were measured. Results: Listeners with NH exhibited a mild SNR loss, whereas those with hearing loss experienced a moderate SNR loss. Scores for the mild hearing loss group were significantly poorer (higher) than those with slight hearing loss. Speech perception performance was best in the no mask, KN95, and surgical mask conditions and poorest in the cloth mask and cloth mask plus face shield conditions for all groups. As listening effort decreased, speech perception increased for all groups. Conclusions: The impact of different types of facemasks on speech perception in noise was demonstrated in this study indicating that as the SNR was reduced, listening effort increased and speech perception performance decreased for listeners with NH and slight/mild hearing loss. No mask, KN95, and surgical masks had the least impact on performance, whereas cloth masks posed a significant detriment to communication. If communication is to occur in a background of noise while wearing masks, a KN95 mask and an SNR of at least +15 dB is recommended regardless of hearing status., The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented changes to everyday life, including the creation of nationwide facemask recommendations and mandates. Universal mask-wearing mandates were implemented to slow down and prevent the widespread [...]

During the past several years, the hype and opportunism surrounding the Columbian quincentenary has tended to overshadow the ongoing work of historians and anthropologists who have spent the past twenty [...]

Embers of the Past: Essays in Times of Decolonization, by Javier Sanjines C, translated by David Frye. Durham, Duke University Press, 2013. xxi, 219 pp. $79.95 US (cloth), $22.95 (paper). [...]

Abstract: Right node raising sentences (RNR) have proved to be difficult for modern syntactic theory to account in an explanatory fashion. In this paper I argue that the reason for this difficulty is that RNR cannot be fully analyzed as a construction independent of online parsing. I argue against current and possible grammatical analyses of the construction and posit that the interpretation of the shared material in the first conjunct is effectively illusory. That is, the interpretive relation between the shared material in RNR and the gap position in the first conjunct is not encoded in the offline representation of the construction, but rather is only captured via a transitory online parsing operation. This analysis has consequences for the relation between the grammar and the parser as well the limits of grammatical relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Anasazi Foundation, a wilderness therapy program and philosophical group founded by Ezekiel Sanchez and Larry Olson. Topics include Navajo traditions, wilderness of deserts, and philosophy behind absence. Also discussed is the lack of consciousness and positive aspects of blandness