Effects of body position and vision on speech understanding

Abstract

Twenty-four young adults with normal hearing, vision and balance completed the BKN-SIN Test under four conditions: Sitting versus standing with eyes open versus blindfolded. Subjects’ SNR-50 scores did not differ significantly among conditions; however, subjects rated listening as significantly easier when sitting with eyes closed than standing with eyes open. This normative research is the first of several inter-modality studies at our laboratory addressing effects of body position and balance on speech understanding.