Sentence intelligibility as a function of reverberation time and the presence or absence of a pause was measured in three age groups by means of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test. Young, middle aged, and old subjects listened to sentences recorded with approximately zero, one or three seconds reverberation time and with half containing a meaningful pause. In a second study, a different group of participants listened to an undistorted recording of the test to provide some information on the standardization of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test across age groups. All subjects, who were prescreened for audiological normal hearing, were tested for recognition of one key word in each sentence immediately following presentation. Reverberation of three seconds reduced intelligibility for all groups. Age differences which occurred at the longest reverberation time disappeared when a pause was inserted. However, only pauses before a key word were effective. Unmasking of reverberation was suggested as a possible factor in the pause position effect. Practical applications of results are also discussed.
