auditory recognition of persian digits in multi-talker babble noise: a preliminary study

background and aim: digits are suitable materials for hearing assessment of wide range of patients including children and adults with various language abilities. single monosyllabic 1-10 digits in triplet formant have been used for measuring speech recognition threshold in signal-to-noise ratio. the purpose of this study was to determine signal-to-noise ratio (snr) needed for 50 percent correct recognition of persian monosyllabic digits (1-10) in multi-talker babble noise. methods: thirty unique triplet set of nine 1-10 monosyllabic persian digits were created and mixed with multi-talker babble noise. signal-to-noise ratio varied from -18 to +3 db in 3-db steps.  digits were presented binaurally to 17 normal hearing young adults aged 18-25 years. speech recognition threshold in snr (srtsnr) was measured by spearman-karber equation and probit regression method. results: mean srtsnr of persian digits, had minimum value of -12.7 db for digit 3 and maximum value of -6.8 db for digit 9. mean (standard deviation) of srtsnr was -9.5 (2.1) db. there was no statistically significant difference between mean srtsnr of the males and the females for all digits (p>0.05). conclusion: persian 1-10 monosyllabic digits are not homogeneous in terms of snr needed for reaching 50% correct recognition. mean srtsnr of persian digits is comparable to german and polish digits but is higher than english digits.