J Am Acad Audiol 6 : 183-186 (1995)
Relative Intelligibility of the
Revised CID W-1s as Presented via
MLV and Auditec Recordings
Theresa Rourke-Cullen*
Rebecca L. Ninyat
Michael A. Nerbonnet
Abstract
The relative intelligibility of the revised CID W-1 spondaic word list, as developed and recommended for clinical use by ASHA, was evaluated in two experiments . In Experiment 1,
the revised W-1s were presented via monitored live voice to 25 subjects with normal hearing. Mean minimum recognition levels for each of the 36 spondees varied between 16 .8 and
25 .2 dB SPL, a range of 8 .4 dB . In Experiment 2, the Auditec recordings of the revised W1s were presented to a different group of 20 subjects with normal hearing. Mean minimum
recognition values for the individual spondees varied between 18 .1 and 30 .6 dB SPL, a range
of 12 .5 dB . Thus, the homogeneity of audibility for the revised W-1s is no better than has
been noted in the past for the original W-1 s and, in the case of the Auditec recording, is considerably worse. A reduced list of spondees with improved homogeneity of audibility is
recommended for clinical use.
Key Words:
Homogeneity of audibility, speech recognition threshold (SRT), spondees
n 1979, the Subcommittee on Speech
Audiometry of ASHA's Committee on
Audiometric Evaluation disseminated a
comprehensive set of guidelines on the measurement of speech threshold (ASHA, 1979) .
Included was a recommendation to utilize a
revised list of 36 spondees that included 8 new
spondaic words that were not contained in the
original CID W-1 word list (Hirsh et al, 1952).
These new spondees reportedly were substituted for the original items to increase phonetic dissimilarity and improve the range of
audibility of the words in the list . A subsequent
report by the Committee on Audiologic Evaluation (ASHA, 1988) supported the use of the
same 36 spondees . However, in spite of a longstanding need to improve the homogeneity of
audibility of the original W-1s (Bowling and
Elpern, 1961 ; Curry and Cox, 1966 ; Beattie
'Cape and Island Hearing, Inc ., Hyannis, MA ; and
tDivision of Audiology, Department of Communication Disorders, Central Michigan University, Mt . Pleasant, Michigan
Reprint requests : Michael A . Nerbonne, Division of
Audiology, Department of Communication Disorders, Central Michigan University, Mt . Pleasant, MI 48859
et al, 1975a, b; Conn et al, 1975 ; Young et al,
1982), no information was provided in either
ASHA report regarding the impact, if any, of
these new spondees on the range of audibility
of the revised W-1s .
Therefore, two experiments were conducted
to determine if the 36 items contained in the
revised CID W-1 spondaic word list are more
homogeneous with respect to audibility than
the original W-1s .
METHOD
Subjects
For Experiment 1, 25 adults (13 females
and 12 males) ranging in age from 19 to 39
years, with a mean age of 24 years, served as subjects. In Experiment 2, 20 different subjects (10
females and 10 males) were utilized whose ages
ranged from 18 to 34 years, with a mean age of
23 years. To participate in either experiment,
subjects were required to possess hearing sensitivity equal to or better than 20 dB HL (ANSI,
1989) for the octave test frequencies from 250 to
8000 Hz . It was also required that subjects have
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology/Volume 6, Number 2, March 1995
Table 1 Mean Minimum Recognition Values
in dB SPL for Each of the 36 Spondees
of the Revised W-1s Presented
via MLV in Experiment 1
Spondee
Intensity
hot dog
baseball
cowboy
outside
mushroom
16 .8
18 .3
19 .2
19 .2
19 .4
ice cream
19 .9
horseshoe
drawbridge
whitewash
toothbrush
armchair
eyebrow
playground
duck pond
railroad
cookbook
blackboard
woodwork
earthquake
20 .3
20 .4
20 .5
20 .5
20 .7
20.9
21 .3
21 .4
21 .5
21 .5
21 .7
21 .9
22 .1
northwest
mousetrap
airplane
doormat
birthday
greyhound
backbone
padlock
nutmeg
oatmeal
22 .6
22 .7
22 .8
23 .0
23 .1
23 .1
23 .4
23 .4
23 .4
23 .5
hardware
stairway
22 .2
23 .6
eardrum
24 .6
pancake
25 .1
headlight
inkwell
sunset
Mean
SD
Range
24 .6
24 .6
25 .2
21 .9
2 .0
8 .4
Brackets enclose those spondees that are within -1 SD of
the overall mean .
no prior experience with speech recognition
threshold (SRT) testing.
Instrumentation
AMadsen OB 822 audiometer and TDH-39P
earphones were used for all pure-tone and
speech audiometry done in conjunction with
both experiments. The Auditec cassette recordings of the revised W-Is used in Experiment 2
184
Table 2 Mean Minimum Recognition Values in
dB SPL for Each Spondee in Lists A and B
Presented via MLV in Experiment 1 .
List A
Spondee
List B
Intensity
Spondee
Intensity
hot dog
baseball
cowboy
ice cream
horseshoe
drawbridge
whitewash
playground
duck pond
railroad
blackboard
northwest
mousetrap
16 .8
18 .3
19 .2
19 .9
20 .3
20 .4
20.5
21 .3
21 .4
21 .5
21 .7
22 .6
22 .7
outside
mushroom
toothbrush
armchair
eyebrow
cookbook
woodwork
earthquake
hardware
doormat
birthday
greyhound
backbone
19 .2
19 .4
20 .5
20 .7
20 .9
21 .5
21 .9
22 .1
22 .2
23 .0
23 .1
23 .1
23 .4
oatmeal
eardrum
pancake
sunset
23 .5
24 .6
25 .1
25 .2
padlock
stairway
headlight
inkwell
23 .4
23 .6
24 .6
24 .6
airplane
Mean
SD
Range
22 .8
21 .5
2 .3
8 .4
nutmeg
Mean
SD
Range
23 .4
22 .3
1 .6
5 .4
Overall means, SDs, and ranges are also provided .
were transduced by a Sony TC-153SD tape
recorder and fed to the Madsen OB 822 . All
testing was conducted in a double-walled, soundtreated suite. The pure-tone and speech systems
were calibrated prior to the initiation of data collection, periodically throughout the investigations, and at the conclusion according to ANSI
(1989) standards. All systems remained stable
during this time .
Procedures
Following preliminary pure-tone threshold
testing, subjects for each experiment were familiarized with the 36 spondees that comprise the
revised W-1s by having the list read to them at
a comfortable listening level and asking that
each word be repeated.
Following familiarization, subjects were
instructed to repeat each spondee presented
and to guess whenever possible if they were
unsure of test items. All of the spondees then
were presented, using either monitored live
voice (MLV) (Experiment 1) or taped material
(Experiment 2), by earphone to the right ear of
each subject initially at 10 dB SPL, and any
Relative Intelligibility/Rourke-Cullen et al
spondees identified correctly at that presentation level were noted. Since none of the spondees
in either experiment were identified at 10 dB
SPL, all 36 spondees were presented again at 12
dB SPL. As before, the spondees identified correctly at this level were noted, and the spondees
not identified correctly were then presented at
14 dB SPL. This general protocol of increasing
the presentation level in 2-dB increments and
presenting in a different order only those spondees that had not been identified at previous levels continued with each subject until all 36 spondees were perceived correctly. In this manner, the
minimum intensity level required for each
spondee to become audible was determined in
each experiment .
For Experiment 1, all subjects were tested
by the same experienced female clinician, who
used General American dialect. All spondees
presented via MLV were carefully monitored on
the VU meter of the OB 822. In Experiment 2,
the Auditec recordings employed a male speaker
with General American dialect.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
T
he mean minimum recognition levels in
dB SPL for each of the 36 spondees presented via MLV in Experiment 1 are presented
in Table 1 . Average levels ranged from 16 .8 dB
SPL (hot dog) to 25 .2 dB SPL (sunset), producing a range in audibility of 8.4 dB . A similar
analysis of the two 18-item lists developed by
the committee, found in Table 2, indicated range
of audibility values of 8.4 and 5.4 dB for Lists
A and B, respectively.
For Experiment 2, Table 3 contains the
mean minimum recognition levels in dB SPL for
each spondee as recorded by Auditec. A 12 .5-dB
range in audibility was found, with ice cream
(18.1 dB SPL) being the most audible and woodwork (30.6 dB SPL) the least audible. For the 18item lists, contained in Table 4, List A had a
range of audibility of 10 .9 dB, while List B had
a range of 10 .8 dB .
The range of audibility values determined
for the full list of the revised W-1s in both experiments, utilizing normal-hearing listeners, are no
better than those reported in previous research
with the original W-1s (Bowling and Elpern,
1961 ; Curry and Cox, 1966 ; Beattie et al, 1975a,
b; Young et al, 1982). This is particularly true of
the Auditec recordings of the revised W- 1s, where
the range of audibility was found to be 12 .5 dB .
An attempt was made to improve (reduce)
the range by eliminating those individual spon-
Table 3 Mean Minimum Recognition Values in
dB SPL for Each of the 36 Spondees from the
Auditec Recording of the Revised W-1s
Spondee
Intensity
ice cream
playground
drawbridge
hot dog
outside
baseball
18 .1
18.6
19 .6
19 .6
19 .8
19 .9
airplane*
stairway*
eyebrow*
earthquake*
mousetrap*
toothbrush*
blackboard*
armchair*
cowboy
northwest*
headlight
railroad*
horseshoe*
padock*
doormat*
greyhound*
oatmeal*
duck pond*
whitewash*
21 .2
21 .2
21 .8
22 .0
22 .0
22 .2
22 .3
22 .4
22 .8
22 .8
23 .2
23 .3
23 .5
23 .7
23 .9
23 .9
23 .9
24 .0
24 .0
birthday*
cookbook*
backbone*
24 .9
25 .0
25 .1
pancake
sunset
24 .1
24 .4
mushroom
hardware
inkwell
nutmeg
eardrum
woodwork
26 .2
26 .6
26 .8
26 .9
29 .0
30 .6
Mean
SD
Range
23 .3
2 .7
12 .5
* Spondees within - 1 SD of overall means in Experiments
1 and 2.
Brackets enclose all spondees with recognition values
within - 1 SD of the overall mean .
dees that had mean minimum recognition levels that varied from the overall mean for the
entire list by more than -} 1 standard deviation.
Using this criterion, those spondees within the
brackets in Tables 1 and 3 would be retained for
clinical use and the others eliminated . For Experiment 1, this resulted in a recommended list
of 26 spondees that have a much more desirable
range of audibility of 3.7 dB . Using the same
approach for the data from Experiment 2
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology/Volume 6, Number 2, March 1995
Table 4 Mean Minimum Recognition Values in
dB SPL for Each Spondee in Lists A and B of
the Revised W-1s as Recorded by Auditec
List B
ListA
Intensity
Spondee
Intensity
ice cream
playground
drawbridge
18 .1
18 .6
19 .6
outside
stairway
eyebrow
19 .8
21 .2
21 .8
baseball
airplane
mousetrap
blackboard
cowboy
northwest
railroad
horseshoe
oatmeal
duck pond
whitewash
pancake
sunset
eardrum
19 .9
21 .2
22 .0
22 .3
22 .8
22 .8
23 .3
23 .5
23 .9
24 .0
24 .0
24 .1
24 .4
29 .0
toothbrush
armchair
headlight
padlock
doormat
greyhound
birthday
cookbook
backbone
mushroom
hardware
inkwell
nutmeg
woodwork
22 .2
22 .4
23 .2
23 .7
23 .9
23 .9
24 .9
25 .0
25 .1
26 .2
26 .6
26 .8
26 .9
30 .6
Spondee
hot dog
Mean
SD
Range
19 .6
22 .4
2 .6
10 .9
earthquake
Mean
SD
Range
22 .0
24 .2
2 .6
10 .8
Overall means, SDs, and ranges are also provided .
produced a list of 24 spondees with a range of
audibility of 3 .9 dB . While some anticipated
variability exists in the words that comprise
the recommended lists from Experiments 1 and
2, due in part to the use of different speakers, a
total of 20 of the 26 spondees retained in Experiment 1 also were retained in Experiment 2.
Based on these findings, use of either the
36-item or half-lists of the revised W- 1s, whether
in a MLV or recorded presentation mode, is not
recommended. Clinicians using the revised W-1s
are urged to consider utilizing the reduced list of
20 spondees for SRT measurement identified in
Experiments 1 and 2 and asterisked in Table 3,
which have a much more acceptable range of
audibility, based on the results obtained in this
investigation with normal-hearing listeners. Additional research is needed with hearing-impaired
subjects to determine if the findings reported
regarding the range of audibility of the revised
W-1s can be generalized to a clinical population .
Acknowledgment . Portions of this paper were presented at a poster session by M. Nerbonne, R. Ninya, and
T. Rourke-Cullen at the American Academy of Audiology
Annual Meeting (April, 1993) in Phoenix, AZ .
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