THURSDAY MORNING, 7 DECEMBER 2017 STUDIO 9, 8:25 A.M. TO 11:40 NOON Session 4aAA Architectural Acoustics: Speech Intelligibility in Reverberation and Noise Roger W. Schwenke, Chair Meyer Sound Laboratories, 2832 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA 94702 Chair’s Introduction—8:25 Invited Papers 8:30 4aAA1. Speech intelligibility studies in a historic multipurpose room. Ana M. Jaramillo (Olson Sound Design, LLC, 8717 Humboldt Ave. N, Brooklyn Park, MN 55444,
[email protected]), Peggy B. Nelson (Speech-Language-Hearing Sci., Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN), and Bruce C. Olson (AFMG Services North America, LLC, Brooklyn Park, MN) The Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences department at the University of Minnesota is located in Shevlin Hall, a historic building dating from the 1920s. Shevlin Hall has a large room on the first floor with a high coffered ceiling that is often used for receptions and presentations but also serves as a classroom. Students with hearing loss often complained about attending classes in Shevlin 110 due to its high reverberation times, combined with window AC unit noise, resulting in very degraded speech intelligibility. In 2013, the room went through renovations that addressed room acoustics, sound system design, as well as lighting and equipment (not including AC). Post-renovation measurements and subjective impressions have shown a significant improvement in speech intelligibility in the room. For this paper, we are looking at subject-based intelligibility tests to compare with prediction metrics and simulations, as well as collect- ing a qualitative narrative on the department’s impression on the room before and after renovations.