STARR

Content

STARR (Sentence Test with Adaptive Randomised Roving levels) is a platform that was developed with English sentences by the IHR (Institute of Hearing Research) in collaboration with Advanced Bionics. A CD-ROM includes the test materials, installation instructions, control and data viewing programs, calibration signals, masking noises and an extensive help file. These materials were prepared as a CD-ROM for use with a PC.

The English STARR comprises 25 lists of 30 sentences, with five keywords specified in each sentence (150 keywords per list). All sentences are recorded in audio-alone male-speaker and female-speaker digital recordings.

Aim

How can we estimate the real-life speech perception ability of implant users?
The STARR (Sentence Test with Adaptive Randomised Roving levels) aims to make an assessment of speech perception that more closely relates to real life listening situations than the fixed level tests traditionally conducted. Sentences are each delivered by either a male or a female speaker, at one of three different presentation levels, with adaptively varying background noise. The presentation order is randomised, for both the level and the speaker, such that subjects cannot optimize their processor controls as for fixed level tests. This aspect of the STAR² design better mimics group conversations and more fully challenges sound processor functionality, such as the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) system which is not usually exercised in conventional tests.

This test was created to have a sufficient number of test sentences for repeated evaluations of CI users’ speech understanding and we aimed to offer a representative difficulty level as can be found in spoken language of everyday-life. This test offers comprehensible sentences for a large and heterogenic population.

Target Group